Akatsuki in my House
by Gone-15535
Summary: "So you meet a senile old lady who gives you a star-shaped diamond and when you get home it randomly explodes, makes a portal and sucks us in, transporting us here, yeah? Did I get that right?" - "Y-yes." - "You think we're stupid, yeah?"
1. Thanks, old lady

**Yeah, it's one of these. Frankly, I got quite sick of reading fics like these where the canon characters were COMPLETELY OOC and the OCs behaved ridiculously.**

**When a deadly ninja gets into your house you're damn well going to do everything they ask of you. You won't scream at them, you won't make snide remarks, nor would you tease them. You'd most likely piss your pants, actually. They wouldn't _suddenly_ fall in love with you. They wouldn't _suddenly_treat you nice and be polite just because you're you (*cough* a shitty Mary Sue *cough*). That would take lots of fucking time, dammit. No, you aren't a special little snowflake. Get the fuck over it.**

**They would most likely slit your throat if you even dared to piss them off even a little bit.**

**So fuck those authors for making such ridiculous stories.**

**Let me show you how it's done.**

**Eh, for all the people like me who're sick of those fics, WELCOME, FRIENDS! *glomps you* You can ignore my cussing, that wasn't meant for you ^_^**

**I tend to be rather... uhm... rude when it comes to thing I don't like, I hope you understand xD**

**Secondly, DISCLAIMER: I own nothing but my own OCs. Because duh.**

**Thanks and enjoy the first chapter :3**

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><p>Why? Why me? God, my man, I know I kind of completely ignored you my whole life, bro, but… help a sister out here? I know I kind of use your name in vain all the time, ya know, but this is my sanity we're talking about here. So, we cool? Yeah, we cool. Now, could you send one of your angels to save me from these weird, crazy cosplayers? Now? Come on! Please? PLEASE?<p>

No? Fine! Screw you, God! I don't need you and your stupid holy... er... holiness! I'll just go pray to... to Chuck Norris!

"What the hell are we supposed to do now?"

"First, we question them."

"Can we kill them afterwards?"

"No, Hidan."

"But I need a freaking sacrifice! Jashin won't be pleased if I'm late, dammit!"

"Shut up already about Jashin, yeah."

So… Chuck, dude, little help please? Locked up in your own house, taken as a hostage by some psycho cosplayers with obvious personality disorders was not how I'd imagined my Saturday night to go. Actually, I would've been asleep by now, if it hadn't been for these crazies. Three guys, with striking resemblances to three Naruto characters, were standing in front of me and discussing what to do with me and my friend. I nervously glanced over to Ella, who seemed just as scared as I was. They'd tied us up tightly and I was trying to come up with a plan to escape. They'd even taped our mouths shut, so I didn't really have a real way to communicate with my redhead friend.

I suppose the best thing to do was think back at what had exactly happened. Everything had went so fast.

_Two girls were merrily walking through the busy streets of their small village. It was Saturday morning and they'd decided to go shopping for some clothes. The red-haired girl, with her dark blue eyes and pale skin, was happily chatting away to her brunette friend, who listened attentively. Her dark brown eyes were mainly focused on the shops, though she still answered her friend's questions. She had a bronze skin tone, and a carefree look on her face. The redhead was smiling widely, and dragged the brunette into a shoe store._

"_What size are you again?"_

"_Twelve inches."_

"_Suzan, seriously." The brunette named Suzan laughed at the look her friend was giving her._

"_I was just joking, Ella! You're no fun." Ella sighed, rolling her eyes. She walked over to look at some nice heels, while Suzan just followed her, peeking over her shoulder. It went like that for a few minutes, considering Suzan disliked shopping for shoes. She'd rather look for new shirts or tops, but Ella had insisted on it, seeing as how she needed new shoes for her date._

_Eventually Suzan got sick of looking around and after telling Ella she'd be waiting outside, she left the store. She was getting increasingly bored when she saw an old lady drop her bag and the contents rolling all over the streets. Seeing as how there was no one else close enough to help her, Suzan decided to pick up the old lady's stuff for her and put them back in the bag. The poor woman had seemed to have difficulty reaching for her stuff anyway._

"_Thank you my dear girl!" the old lady took her hand, smiling widely at her. "Could you walk me across the street? I have trouble seeing these days and I forgot my glasses at home."_

"_No problem." Suzan said, and the old lady took her arm as she was guided safely across the street without any difficulty._

"_Oh, you're such a sweet thing! Thank you for helping an old woman out." Suzan smiled uneasily. She was handicapped when it came to receiving compliments or even being thanked._

"_It was no trouble." Suzan told her awkwardly._

"_Oh, I should give you something in return, shouldn't I? Well, hold on a second, sweetie-" the old lady started looking through her dark purple, leather purse as Suzan tried to convince her to stop._

"_Y-you really don't have to give me anything, miss, it was no big deal! I just… eh…." Her eyes widened when she saw a star which seemed to be made out of diamond. The old lady handed it over to her, and it didn't feel fake. "Ehm, miss, this isn't real diamond or anything, is it?" The old lady ignored her question._

"_I'll give you three wishes. Only three! Use them wisely, alright? Well, off I go now. Goodbye, sweet girl." Suzan had been studying the diamond star intently, trying to figure out whether it was fake or not. She looked up and wanted to respond to the old lady's blabbering, but she was already gone. Suzan blinked twice, trying to figure out what had just happened. Senile old lady seemed to have vanished into thin air. She doubted the star was made out of real diamond. Wishes upon a "diamond" star? Really? Suzan chuckled softly to herself as she tucked the star in the pocket of her coat, right before Ella had joined her again with a content smile on her face and a bag with probably new shoes in it._

"_I'm done! Let's go!"_

Ah, yes. I'd completely forgotten about that. Wait, that old lady had said she'd given me three wishes. When I showed the star to Ella, conveniently while we'd been watching another episode of Naruto Shippuuden, Ella had wished that the Akatsuki had been real so that we could meet them.

My eyes widened in shock.

Wait. Did that mean these _weren't_ actually insane cosplayers?

NO WAY! That stuff only happened in movies, wishes weren't real! They couldn't be real! How? How had it worked? Had that star opened some kind of… portal to the Naruto universe and sucked them out? Well, three of them, anyway. Hold on, three? Ella hadn't specified which ones or how many she'd wanted to show up. She'd simply said "Akatsuki". WAIT. Did that mean the past _and_ the future Akatsuki? But… that meant Orochimaru and Taka as well! Though why hadn't they shown up? Why only three?

I was completely dumbstruck. I felt numb, almost. I didn't even feel Ella nudging me, and before I knew it, I blacked out for a second. This couldn't be happening. Not to me. It had to be some weird dream, right? I slowly looked over to Ella, who was eyeing me worriedly. I took a deep breath through my nose. _Calm down, _I told myself. _There are only three here. Maybe the rest won't even show up?_

Suddenly, the tape on my mouth was ripped off rather violently and I winced. I stared up at Hidan, who was glaring at me impatiently.

"Girl. The hell are we?" he demanded to know. I stuttered as I answered him.

"I-in, in Lancaster, Wisconsin." he raised an eyebrow, not understanding me a bit. "You're in a dif-different world. I, I think you got sucked into ours… by accident?" From the look he was giving me I could tell he felt like getting angry and using me as his outlet. Luckily another member interrupted.

"That would explain a lot, yeah. So how do we get back?" Deidara asked, folding his arms. I tried to calm myself.

"A-ah, well, the thing that probably brought you here… it kind of, ehm, got lost after the portal opened."

"Say _what_? How the fuck are we going to get back now?" Hidan yelled in outrage. I flinched and glanced at Ella, who seemed just as shocked as I'd looked just a few seconds ago. It seemed she'd also finally figured it out.

"Calm yourself. We simply need to find the "thing" that brought us here in the first place. That's all there is to it." We now both stared at Itachi. Hidan wasn't stupid enough to yell at him, at least. I decided to speak up again. I somehow had to ensure that me and Ella stayed alive, right?

"S-so, what are you going to do with us?" The three members exchanged looks. Hidan smirked.

"Well, we only need _one_ person to tell us about this world." He grabbed his scythe, staring at Ella, who shrieked (or tried to, as she still had tape on her mouth).

"W-wait!" I yelled in panic, getting up quickly. At least only my arms were bound, so I could walk fine. "I c-can't really cook, but she's a professional, a-and I can clean! S-so please don't kill anyone! We can both be... kind of helpful!" My voice was shaky, as were my knees, but I couldn't let them kill Ella. I whimpered when Hidan's glare shifted to me and he took a step towards me, but he was stopped by Itachi.

"That's enough. They can both be useful to us." If I hadn't been that nervous I would've sighed in relief.

"Fine!" Hidan threw his hands up in the air. "But I'm going to kill someone _eventually_!" he exclaimed as he walked out of the living room. I looked gratefully at Itachi, though I was still scared with that walking, talking killing machine parading around my house. I knew Itachi was actually, well, good-natured. Of course he didn't know that I knew his secret. I planned to keep it that way. I then looked at Deidara, and backed away when he came walking towards me now.

"Oi, I'm not gonna kill you. Just wanna untie you, yeah." he clarified dryly, and I let him, though I was cautious the entire time. My brain was working overtime, trying to figure out what to do next. Run? But then tell who? The police would be slaughtered, as would the FBI, CIA and even elite soldiers. But how was I going to run away in the first place? I knew they would be keeping an eye on both me and Ella. One wrong move and we would both be dead. We weren't that essential, after all.

Ella let out a loud sigh when Deidara pulled off the tape on her mouth. She was paler than usual and looked incredibly stressed out.

"Tell me what this "thing" is that brought us here and how you got it." Itachi demanded. I gulped, and looked at Ella, before I hesitantly began to tell the story. The two Akatsuki members listened carefully, and when I was finished Itachi still had no real expression on his face, but Deidara was frowning, staring at me sardonically.

"So, you meet a senile old lady who gives you a star-shaped diamond and when you get home it randomly explodes, makes a portal and sucks us in, transporting us here? Did I get that right?" Now I heard it spoken aloud, I realized how ridiculous it sounded. Ella tightly held onto my hand, not hiding that she was freaked out for one bit.

"Y-yes." I muttered, avoiding his eyes.

"You think we're stupid, yeah?"

"It's too outlandish to not be true, Deidara. I doubt they would make up such a story, fully knowing we could kill them." Itachi reasoned. Deidara huffed something unintelligible, but didn't protest.

"So, I suppose we're gonna look for that star that brought you here?" I asked, having managed to calm myself down somewhat. Deidara was about to respond when Ella finally said something.

"U-uhm…." she scratched the back of her head. "That wouldn't do much good. It exploded, remember?" she reminded me. I bit my lip, and then glanced at Itachi.

"Then we track down the woman who gave you that thing." he answered helpfully.

"What, right now? But I'm hungry!" Deidara complained. "Let that woman… oh, what are your names, anyway?" he then asked.

"I'm Ella, and, that's Suzan."

"Huh. Strange names, yeah. So, Ella, was it? You're a cook? Go make me some dinner." Ella glanced nervously at the door of the kitchen, conveniently the door Hidan had walked through.

"A-ah, I'd rather not uhm… be alone with that guy." she murmured. I couldn't blame her. We'd both thought Hidan was an awesome character, but that was before he could actually kill us. Deidara sighed.

"Hidan!" he yelled.

"What?" was the reply.

"Get out the kitchen!"

"Why?"

"Ella is gonna make us something to eat."

"Who?"

"Just get out, yeah!" The door burst open.

"Then where the fuck else am I going to hang out?" he complained. "Why isn't Kakuzu here anyway? Why you two? Dammit, he's gonna kill me for not showing up to our meeting spot!"

"You're immortal, idiot."

"Riiiiight, I forget that somet- OI! The fuck are you calling an idiot, she-male?" If this hadn't been a very serious situation, I probably would've laughed. Fact was, either of these guys could kill me in less than a second and I wasn't about to be decapitated because I just had to chuckle at a lame joke. Okay, maybe I was overreacting, but I certainly didn't feel like interfering.

I eventually followed Ella to the kitchen, where she pulled out some vegetables from the fridge. Her hands were shaking. I walked up to her and grabbed her arm. She turned around and stared at me.

"I am _never_ making a wish again." she said, then grabbing a knife to cut the vegetables with. I had a small smile on my face. "And you are _never_ helping old ladies again, hear me?" Ella was twenty-two, three years older than me.

"Yes ma'am." I said, sitting on the dining table, which was also located in our kitchen. We lived together as roommates. I went to college, studying psychology, while she worked at her family-restaurant as a cook. She made enough money to pay for the rent in our tiny apartment, and she'd soon take over her dad's restaurant since he felt like taking an early retirement. When that happened, we could probably afford a bigger place. We'd been friends for several years now, considering both our families were very close.

"Could you set the table?" she asked tiredly. I nodded and did as she asked of me. When I was done I saw Ella was cooking tomato soup. I decided to leave her alone. Cooking to her was like therapy, after all. I cautiously got out of the kitchen and walked back into the living room. Itachi was staring out the window, probably studying the unfamiliar surroundings. I saw Deidara and Hidan sitting on the couch and staring at the TV, and I realized while they did have televisions back in the Naruto universe, they didn't use them for entertainment. They were looking at SpongeBob SquarePants, and I held back a smirk.

"The fuck is this?" Hidan uttered, gaping at the TV as if it were some kind of alien.

"I have… no idea." Deidara responded, not taking his eyes off the talking, yellow sponge for a second. "All I know is that it's annoying and I'd like to kill it, yeah."

"That's... actually entertainment for children." I told them, and they looked at me for a few seconds before staring back at the cartoon.

"This is what kids here look at for fun?"

"Uhm, yes."

"A talking, square, yellow sponge with an annoyingly high-pitched voice, living under the sea in a pineapple?"

"Yes."

"You people are fucking crazy." I grabbed the remote, which was on the couch right next to Deidara, and switched channels. Oh, great. Soap operas. The Bold and the Beautiful was on and I left it there. At least they were interested enough to keep watching instead of wrecking my house.

"What's this?" Deidara asked, staring at a blonde woman who was crying to some other guy.

"It's… a soap opera. It's like… theater." I tried to explain, but they both blinked and stared back at the television. Hidan had managed to figure out what some of the buttons on the remote meant and turned up the volume.

"_Rick, please don't go! I love you!"_

"_No. It's too late for apologies now. I can't trust you anymore!"_

"_But Rick! Please!"_

"What the fuck is this bullshit?" Hidan exclaimed, leaning back in my dark brown couch, a puzzled look on his face as he watched the woman cry some more and cling to the man, begging for forgiveness. "Why doesn't he just smack the bitch?" Deidara rolled his eyes at this comment, as he too continued watching. Suddenly Itachi walked over from his spot in front of the window and sat down right next to Deidara, staring at the TV.

"_I have to go!"_

"_No you don't! Stay here with me!"_

"_You CHEATED on me!"_

"_But I love you!"_

"…"

"…"

"_Alright, I'll stay."_

"WHAT?" Both Hidan and Deidara gazed at the TV in disbelief as the two characters were making out.

"The bitch cheated on him and he's cool with that? Man, I'd kill that whore!"

"Ridiculous, yeah!"

I couldn't help but chuckle lightly at their outrage. Suddenly Itachi grabbed the remote and changed channels. Wipeout was on. Oh, they would probably enjoy seeing this. I relaxed a little in my seat as I watched Deidara and Hidan laugh at the failure of the contestants. Itachi was merely staring at the screen, though I could swear I saw a faint, amused smile. I didn't look for too long though and instead looked back at the TV.

"Wow, really? I would easily pass every single one of those obstacles, yeah!" Deidara bragged, snickering at a large lady who basically face planted onto one of the giant red balls.

"Eh, well, those people are just regular people. They're not ninjas." I told them slowly, playing with a lock of my hair.

"They're not? Why the hell not?"

"Because ninjas kind of stopped existing here ages ago?" I responded carefully. Hidan snorted and Deidara looked surprised, though Itachi was interested.

"Really? Why?"

"They weren't really needed. Our technology developed to the point where we didn't need people with combat skills like ninjas anymore. I mean, unlike your world, people in my world don't have chakra. So we advanced our technology instead of focusing on that."

"Suzan!" I froze as I heard Ella yell at me. Crap. CRAP. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

"Hold on, yeah! How do you know about chakra and our world?"

"Uhm…."

"You hiding something from us, brat?"

"N-no, but… uh…."

"Explain yourself."

The three Akatsuki members were staring at me suspiciously, and I knew I had to answer them somehow. If not, I would probably die or get tortured into answering. I remembered what Itachi's Tsukuyomi could do.

"Well, fuck."

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><p><strong>Finally! That took me way too long to write.<strong>

**Also, I made Deidara say "yeah" at the end of his sentences because... well, when he says "hm" or "un" he just seems like a retarded caveman. Besides, I like it better. Just my personal preference, if you get what I'm saying.**

****Thanks. You can review nao. :D****


	2. I call bed!

**See what happens when you review? I was so happy when I saw people had actually reviewed, considering this is the first story I ever posted. So, I felt extra motivated to update quickly... **

**Sooo, I hope you enjoy this next chapter even more! :D**

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><p>So, I told the truth. Yes, I told them the TRUTH. Of everything! You can sit there and facepalm and say I'm an idiot for telling them, but when you have a pair of Sharingan eyes glaring at you, you bet your ass you wouldn't dare to lie to them either. Ella, who'd seemed to have finally calmed down as her hands weren't shaking anymore, stood right next to me. I was still on my comfy, dark brown armchair, nervously awaiting their reaction. I'd basically told them that in this world, they were nothing more than characters in a story, and that a person from this world had created their world.<p>

"Hold the fuck up! I'm _not real_? I'm fictional? You're saying Jashin is fictional too? THAT'S BULLSHIT! I'm not some retarded character in some asshole's story! I'm fucking real! You! Suzy or whatever you fucking name is! Touch me! I'm real, aren't I?" Hidan went on a tirade, basically screaming how he wasn't a cartoon and looking ready to kill something, and I decided to ignore his request to touch him, mostly because it was a rather weird request. Deidara was simply gazing blankly at me, still trying to comprehend it. Itachi, however, seemed relatively calm.

"Just because we were created by someone from this place, Hidan," he spoke coolly, interrupting Hidan's rant "doesn't make us not real. It simply means we're fictional in this universe – or we _were_ fictional until we got teleported here – but real in our own universe." Hidan blinked, staring at him for a few seconds.

"Yeah, what he said." I added, nodding my head since I didn't really know what else to say. It was a very complicated situation, but I decided not to think too much about it, as it would just give me a headache. Ella had been tense the entire time, but she finally relaxed when she saw Hidan had calmed down.

"Alright, I can live with that, I guess. Oi, you!" he suddenly looked at Ella, who stared back at him.

"I have a name." she muttered quietly but he didn't hear her. I could tell his loud voice was getting on her nerves, but she wasn't nearly stupid enough to yell at a guy with a giant scythe.

"Is the food ready? I'm starving!" Hidan complained. Ella nodded slowly, glancing at me before walking towards the kitchen. I also got up and followed her, together with the other three members. It seemed they'd all been rather hungry. I quickly decided to sit next to Deidara, considering he was the most normal out of the three of them. Hidan was a psycho and I would feel awkward sitting next to Itachi. The two of us were sitting across the other three. Of course, poor Ella was forced to sit right in between the other two members. I shot her an apologetic look, but she simply glared back as she poured some soup for everyone.

They seemed to like the soup, which was a relief. I kept my eyes mostly on Ella, who seemed highly uncomfortable, until Deidara distracted me by striking up a conversation.

"So, you know all about us, yeah?" he asked, taking a sip of his water.

"I don't think I can remember everything, but I know quite a lot." I responded, noticing the others were listening in. I avoided all eye-contact with Itachi.

"What do you know? Anything of importance to us?" I weighed my options. Deidara was alive, it seemed he had both arms as well. Hidan was also still intact, and so was Itachi. It had to be somewhere in the beginning of Shippuuden when they'd been plucked out of their world. But you know what? we'd probably messed up everything anyway by wishing them here, so I might as well tell them about their deaths. To hell with being responsible!

"Uhm, well, what would you like to know? About your future, that is." I asked him. Deidara pondered it for a minute before he answered.

"Well, am I going to successfully kill Sasuke?" he said bluntly, obviously not caring what Itachi thought of it. I realized then that he'd probably been plucked out of the timeline when his arms had been reattached. Not so much the beginning of Shippuuden, more like the middle part.

"Eh, no. You're… actually going to blow yourself up in a last attempt to kill him but he manages to get away." There was a silence as Deidara looked like he was ready to blow. Hidan laughed loudly.

"Ha, fucking sissy! Couldn't even kill a little kid!" he derided him. Deidara gritted his teeth.

"Is this asshole ever going to die, or something?" he then asked me. I chuckled, and I was about to answer, when Ella did it for me.

"Well, no. But, he'll get decapitated and his head will end up in a hole someplace where no one will probably ever find him." she said soberly, focusing on the remainder of her soup. Deidara burst out in laughter as Hidan's smirk disappeared.

"Who's the sissy now, yeah? At least I died as art! You just rotted away in a hole!" Ella backed away from Hidan, leaning towards Itachi, when Hidan suddenly shot up from his seat, slamming his hands on the table and glaring at Deidara. She didn't seem scared, at least, more incredibly annoyed and worried.

"Fuck you, she-male!"

"You wanna start something, asshole?"

"Damn right I'll start something, punk!"

"Sit _down_." Itachi suddenly interrupted, obviously having had enough of their screaming. Deidara gritted his teeth, glowering firmly at him, but didn't say anything and sat back down. Hidan was less willing to cooperate. I, for one, thought the entire spectacle was rather entertaining.

"I'll sit down whenever the fuck I want!" he snapped, aggravated.

"Then I advise you to keep quiet at the very least. We do not want to attract any attention from the neighbors."

"Whatever, I'm gonna watch some more TV!" he exclaimed, leaving the room. At least he'd already finished eating. Now that was dealt with, everyone in the room relaxed a little more. I stared at Ella, who seemed to be a lot more stressed out than I was, and I just hoped she was alright.

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><p><strong>Ella<strong>

After we were finished eating, I cleaned up the table and Suzan decided to show Deidara around the house, as he was the only one who hadn't taken a look around yet, which left me alone with Itachi. I wondered why he didn't just get up and leave, until I realized he'd probably been wondering if we knew his secret. I reluctantly turned around to face him. He was still seated, and he'd been staring at me the entire time.

"Is something wrong?" I asked, trying to sound casual, but the concern was dripping of my voice. What a fail. He didn't answer. His eyes narrowed just a little bit, and I chewed on my lower lip, which was a clear give away as if my worried voice hadn't been obvious enough. I was bad at lying and the sorts, so I tried to avoid it as much as possible.

"Suzan said you knew about our future. I assume you know about our pasts as well?" His voice was calm like always, and his face was expressionless. But I knew that he knew that we knew. You know?

"We won't tell anyone." I said softly, trying to reassure him. "It wouldn't do us any good anyway." He suddenly looked away, gazing at the table for a few seconds.

"I appreciate it." he answered solemnly, and stood up, leaving the room quietly. For a second there, I thought I'd seen his expression soften just a little bit. He was probably relieved. _I should probably go tell Suzan about this when I'm done cleaning._

I sighed, continuing to put the dishes in the machine, until (after just two minutes) the door opened once again. I turned around, expecting to see Suzan, but it was Hidan. I blinked once, then decided to ignore him.

"Oi, you." he said, with a bored tone.

"I have a _name_." I mumbled softly for the second time that day, annoyed, but he heard me, and walked closer.

"Huh. Ella, was it?" I didn't look at him and nodded once. From the corner of my eyes I noticed him leaning against the table as he watched me wipe the surface of the table with a clean, dry cloth. "I'm still hungry."

"You can't make your own food?" I asked, trying to sound calm and not like I was mocking him. Which I wasn't, by the way. I knew plenty of people who really didn't know how to cook properly. Besides, Hidan definitely didn't look like the kind of guy who was even half-decent at cooking food.

"Of course I can, but it tastes like shit. You make me something." he demanded like a spoiled little child. Of course, this was a guy who was a lot taller, stronger and faster than me with a giant scythe so I wasn't about to argue.

"What would you like to eat?" I asked, now finally facing him. He looked rather jaded, staring around the kitchen. It seemed like he didn't like our world much.

"Something sweet." He now looked me right in the eyes. "Can you bake cake or something?"

"Hidan," I carefully said, not wanting him to go on a tirade again "it's one AM. I'm… a little too tired for that." He obviously didn't like hearing that.

"Well still I'm fucking hungry!" I sighed wearily, rubbing my temples, before I eventually responded.

"You can eat some cookies if you'd like. We still have some chocolate chip cookies left."

"Chocolate what?"

A minute later he was contently chewing on the cookies, sitting on my table. _He isn't that bad, _I thought to myself. I suppose I'd overreacted a little, but just the scythe and the screaming had freaked me somewhat. In the end, he was kind of a blood lusting maniac, but at least I now knew he could also be reasonable, that was, when he was happy. He still continued cussing, though, not that I minded that much. Suzan also cussed off and on so I was used to it by now. I also discovered he really did like talking when he was in a good mood. About nearly everything. Preferably his adventures.

"…so then I said, "Screw that," and I killed 'em all! I mean, it wasn't part of our mission but those bastards had been pissing me off, and it's not like Kakuzu had minded anyway, and Leader didn't really care when we told him. In any case, those fuckers got what they deserved!" I'd been listening curiously, only glancing away once when Suzan came in to get a snack from the fridge.

"Huh. How many guys were there?" I asked. Hidan thought about it, scratching his chin.

"Eh, I'd say 'bout… twelve? Thirteen? Something like that."

"Ella," I heard Suzan whine behind me, and turned around to face her "I'm tired."

"Then just go to sleep? What you telling her for? Is she your mom or something?" Hidan commented with a scowl. Suzan rolled her eyes.

"I was just wondering where you guys were going to sleep. Our apartment isn't exactly big, if you hadn't noticed already." We had two small bedrooms, one bathroom with a toilet in it, a living room just big enough to fit a couch and a TV, and a kitchen that could just about fit a crappy table with a few chairs. This was going to be a problem.

"I call bed!" Hidan exclaimed.

"You can't just randomly decide that by yourself." Suzan said irritated.

"Oh? And what were you going to do about it? If I recall correctly, you were scared shitless of me just an hour ago." he retorted with a smirk.

"I-I wasn't... I was just shocked! That's all!" she stuttered, which didn't really make her sound convincing at all.

"Sure you were. Pussy." She frowned, glowering intensely at him, but didn't say anything. I looked from one to the other, as it was clear they were having some sort of glaring contest. Deidara came walking right in, and blinked, looking at the two.

"What are they doing?" he asked with a frown. I shrugged. After a minute of silence she decided to break it up.

"Ehm, about where we're going to sleep," I said loudly, catching their attention "two of you can share my room, I'll stay in Suzan's room with her and someone will have to sleep on the couch." Hidan and Deidara glanced at each other before racing to the room.

"I CALLED BED!" Hidan screeched, pulling Deidara's hair back to slow him down and running past him.

"DON'T CARE! And let go of my hair, yeah!" the blonde yelled back, making a desperately leap and grabbing Hidan's ankle, making the Jashinist fall flat on his face. The two were basically trying to wrestle their way to my bedroom.

"You motherfucker!"

"OW! You BIT me! You fucking prick!"

"That bed is MINE!"

"In your dreams, yeah!" Deidara basically climbed over him, trying to reach the doorknob. Hidan growled, grabbing both of Deidara's legs and yanking him back. He managed to get up on his feet and with a last-minute sprint and a jump that seemed to have come straight out of a generic action movie, landed on the bed. Suzan was laughing her ass off as she witnessed Deidara throw a fit and accuse Hidan of cheating since he'd pulled his hair, but the immortal man would hear none of it.

"You lost, punk. Get over it!"

"Only a little bitch would pull another man's hair like that!" Hidan got up, angry, thus falling into Deidara's trap, who roughly shoved him away and jumped on the bed instead.

"You fucking bastard! Get off, that's MY bed!" Hidan screamed, trying to pull him off. Deidara was holding on to the bed frame with all his might.

Meanwhile, I calmly walked past them, trying to find a spare blanket and a pillow for Itachi. When I found them, I walked back into the living room to find him studying one of Suzan's psychology textbooks, sitting on our dark brown armchair. He didn't look up when I came in, nor when I put the blanket and the pillow for him in place.

"Thank you." he simply said, and I left him alone again. He really wasn't much of a talker. I heard the screaming getting louder from my room, and went to check what they were doing. I saw Deidara nearly wrecking my bed frame, and scowled.

"Excuse me," I said, but they ignored me. "Excuse me!" I repeated a little louder now. They still ignored me. I decided to speak their language. "HEY!" I screamed. They now stopped what they were doing and stared at me. I blinked, not believing that cliché had actually worked.

"What?"

"Uhm, how about you switch places every other night?" I suggested. The two glanced at each other. Hidan was still holding Deidara's leg.

"That's… fine, but who's gonna go first, yeah?"

"I AM!"

"Stop!" I interrupted before they had at it again. "I'll pick a number from one to ten. Whoever guesses first will get the bed tonight, so-"

"Two! Seven! Ten! Eight!"

"Hidan, you have to take turns." He glared, but I ignored it. I picked number nine. "Alright, you can guess now! Deidara first." I could still feel Hidan glare at me. The blonde thought about it long and hard. He even studied my face, as if I had the answer written on my forehead.

"Five?" he guessed hopefully.

"Wrong." I said, shaking my head. "Hidan?"

"Uh… three?"

"Wrong."

"Eight?"

"Nope."

"Nine?" I nodded, and Hidan grinned triumphantly at Deidara, who was fuming.

"HA! I win!" While Hidan was pissing Deidara off even more, I safely put away my valuable things, like family pictures, in case the two decided to get rough. Suzan then joined me, probably curious as to why the screaming had stopped. She wasn't impressed with Hidan's bragging at how he'd gotten the bed.

"Personally, I think Itachi got the best deal. He doesn't have to share the living room with anyone." Suzan said. Both Akatsuki members froze for a second.

"That sly weasel! Now I'm stuck with you, yeah!" Deidara complained. Hidan mockingly raised his eyebrows.

"Well, feel free to leave at any time, Deidara-_chan_." The blonde fumed again at hearing that nickname. I rolled my eyes and promptly left the room, after grabbing my PJs out my closet, not wanting to hear any more of the childish arguing. At least Suzan thought it was hilarious, so she was entertained. I slipped unnoticed into Suzan's room and locked the door, quickly changing into my green, teddy bear covered pajamas.

Eventually, after about fifteen minutes, Hidan and Deidara had calmed down. I hesitantly said good night to Itachi, who politely returned it, and muttered one at the two loudmouths, who either didn't hear it or ignored it. Suzan didn't bother saying good night to anyone. Instead she changed and got in her bed, falling asleep instantly. I crawled into bed next to her, as there were no more blankets left for me to sleep on the floor with, and tried to get comfortable. I'd handed the only two spare blankets to Itachi and Deidara. After about five minutes of wriggling around and trying to get Suzan's arm off my face, I fell asleep.

* * *

><p><strong>Deidara<strong>

I was awakened rather rudely the next morning when I heard a scream coming from Suzan's room. I rubbed my eyes out before I shoved Hidan's foot away from me and got up from the mattress Ella had helpfully set up for me. She was pretty nice. She still seemed kind of nervous around us, though. More screaming. Now Hidan sat up straight, grumpily getting up from his bed and marching to Suzan's room, cursing softly. I followed him, a little drowsily. I wasn't much of a morning person. Hidan didn't even bother knocking. He almost ripped the door out of its frame as he opened it.

"The FUCK is all this noise?" He yelled. It seemed Itachi had beat us to it, though, as he was standing in the middle of the room. Suzan was blinking slowly, still not completely awake, and Ella was paler than usual. I suddenly spotted Kakuzu standing at the far right of the room, looking a little frustrated. The Leader was there as well, which I found even more surprising. But then I something else drew my attention. I gasped when I saw the monstrosity in front of me.

"NO!" I cried out in horror. My stomach twisted and my eyes widened when I saw it.

"SENPAI! TOBI MISSED YOU!"

* * *

><p><strong>DUN DUN DUUUUUN!<strong>

**OH NOES! _*Major Manga Spoiler*_ IT'S TOBI! THE GUY WHO-WAS-MADARA-BUT-THEN-HE-WASN'T-AND-I'M-CONFUSED-SO-WHO-THE-HELL-IS-TOBI-LOL!**

**Really big thanks to _WolvesKey_,_ yyh-ygo-fma_,_ Deidara's Dragon_ and _The Ultimate Baka_ for reviewing! I really appreciate it, guys! :3**

**And also thanks to the people who subscribed to the story and/or added it to their favorites!**

**Don't forget to put who you'd like to see hook-up in the reviews, or any other suggestions you have, like who I should bring in next and stuff like that.**

**I EAT REVIEWZ. FEED MEH PLZ.**


	3. Shopping time

**HOLY SHITBALLS.**

**So. Many. Reviews. For just one chapter! I'M SO HAPPY!**

***glomps* I FREAKING LOVE YOU GUYS!**

**That's why, here you have an extra long chapter, in just ONE day! Aren't I just the best writer evar? :3**

****ALSO, contains major spoilers concerning Tobi, so don't read if you're not up-to-date with the manga.****

****ENJOY IT.****

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

While Itachi was explaining the situation to Kakuzu and Pain, Tobi was... well, he was being Tobi and glomping Deidara while Ella just watched awkwardly and Hidan rolled his eyes. Except Tobi wasn't really Tobi, he was someone else. An incredibly dangerous person, at that. But he wasn't Madara either. Because Madara had been in that sixth coffin and Kabuto had revived him with his Impure World Resurrection thing. So who the hell was Tobi? Either way, I wasn't willing to find out. I was happy enough with him being just the goofball he'd been for the majority of the story. Another thing that crossed my mind was, that there were seven people cramped into my little room. First of all, you had my bed, a desk, a wardrobe, a chair and then just a bit space to move around. HOW had these people fit in my room and WHY were they still here?

Ella, who was also noticing how overcrowded the room was, tried to usher Tobi and Deidara out the room, at least, though Tobi still wouldn't let go of Deidara. Hidan followed, complaining that he was hungry again and that Ella should go make breakfast already. I stared at the three men who were talking in hushed voices. They didn't even seem to notice me, or they just ignored me. I first took a good look at Kakuzu. Yep, he was every bit as creepy as I'd imagined him to be. Mr. Stitches shot me a glance and I froze for a second. But he didn't say anything and instead continued to ask Itachi questions. He seemed rather annoyed with the whole ordeal.

I managed to slip away unnoticed (at least I thought I'd managed it unnoticed) with my casual clothes and decided to change in the bathroom. I also took the chance to brush my teeth and wash my face. Suddenly the door burst open. Shit, I'd forgotten to lock it.

"Move." Hidan said brusquely. Obviously not a morning person. He didn't even wait for me to move, just pushed me aside. I stared at him indignantly as I watched him wash his face and slick his hair back as it had been a little messy before. "I need a toothbrush." He looked at me expectantly, but I merely shrugged.

"There's only mine and Ella's. We'll have to buy some for you today." I murmured, still not completely awake. "You mind? I still need to comb my hair." Hidan ignored that statement.

"I'm coming with you." I nearly dropped the comb out of my hands and gazed at him, blinking. Maybe I'd heard it wrong.

"Come again?"

"I said I'm coming with you."

"Why?"

"_Because_, I am fucking bored." he said slowly, as if I were retarded. He obviously didn't understand that he would REALLY stand out with his hair and the cloak. Not to mention the scythe. Or the violet eyes.

"Hidan, people in this world don't have giant scythes, silver hair or a black robe with red clouds. It's best if me and Ella go alone." I tried to explain to him, as I started to comb my hair. He frowned at me, as if I'd just scolded at him, and folded his arms. I blinked, and realized he wasn't wearing anything but a pair of white boxers. I could feel my cheeks heat up, and tried to look the other way.

"What's up with you, all of a sudden?" he asked confused, noticing the red blush on my face.

"You… you should put something on, dude." I huffed, really trying (like, REALLY) not to look at his abs. I could feel him staring at me, and suddenly he started laughing.

"Never seen a guy naked before?" I turned even redder, shooting him a glare, still trying to avoid looking at his muscles.

"Of course I have!" I nearly yelled. "But I barely know you!" I was just generally uncomfortable when I saw guys almost completely nude. Especially guys who were supposed to be fictional. He smirked widely.

"Oh? So you're not as innocent as I thought! You dirty little slut!"

"I-it was just one guy!" I sputtered, embarrassed by the entire conversation, as I tried to occupy myself by tying my hair up in a simple ponytail. I could see in the mirror that my entire face was red now, and I inwardly cursed myself for ever telling Hidan to put some clothes on. He, on the other hand, was obviously enjoying it. And was still cheerfully in his underwear.

"Just one? Did you even have se-"

"LALALALA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" I yelled out childishly, putting my fingers in my ear and promptly walking out the bathroom. He followed me.

"DID YOU EVEN HAVE SEX WITH HIM? HA, FUCKING VIRGIN!" he yelled through the entire house. I stopped dead in my tracks when I spotted Pain, Kakuzu and Ella in the hallway. Apparently, they'd been having a conversation (Ella's hands shaking, though she'd hid them behind her back) but now they were staring at me and Hidan. Ella sighed deeply, and Kakuzu rubbed his forehead.

"Hidan, put your clothes on." Pain ordered calmly. I felt like sinking through the ground, as I was completely embarrassed. Hidan grinned widely at me before he walked back into Ella's room to get dressed. Ella frowned at me.

"Really?"

"Shut up." I huffed, walking right past them, into the living room. Itachi was sitting on the armchair, and Tobi and Deidara were standing in the middle of the room, right behind the couch, Deidara trying to pry Tobi off him who was crying about how he'd missed his senpai. Of course they'd heard Hidan's screaming as well. Deidara burst out into chuckles when he saw my red face. Itachi was merciful enough (or indifferent enough) to just ignore me, but Tobi walked up to me, putting out his hand.

"Hi there, Virgin-chan! I'm Tobi!" he said gleefully, and I almost gawked at him. Deidara was nearly rolling over the floor, clutching his stomach as he laughed.

"Virgin-chan?" I repeated slowly. Tobi laughed goofily, almost apologetically.

"Well, I heard Hidan-san yell you were a-"

"I'm NOT a fucking virgin!" I cursed, getting really pissed. Seriously, I wasn't. Yeah, my first time had been shitty (the guy was in and out again in like, two minutes) but it still counted! Deidara was on his knees by now. Itachi suspiciously coughed, turning his head away from me, and I could swear he covered up a chuckle.

"Oh, then Tobi is sorry, Loudmouth-chan! Tobi didn't mean to offend you!" Was this guy seriously taking shots at me under the pretense of being an idiot? It made my left eye twitch.

"My _name_ is Suzan."

"Nice to meet you, Suzan-chan!"

"Right." I stared at him for a while, frowning. He really was good at acting. I peeked at the only hole he had in his mask, curiously, but he subtly changed the position of his head so I couldn't see his Sharingan. Deidara was giving me a questioning look, but I merely shrugged and walked into the kitchen, opening the fridge only to discover there was barely any food left. I sighed, and decided to inform Ella. When I walked back into the living room, I found Tobi rather enthusiastically shaking Ella's hand.

"Ella, Ella, Ella, Ella, Ella, Ella-"

"Shut up, idiot!" Deidara yelled at him, annoyed with his repeating of Ella's name. Ella herself was rather flustered.

"Soooorry Deidara-senpai! Tobi just really likes that name! ELLA, ELLA, ELLA! ELLA-CHAN IS SO PRETTY!" The door burst open again, revealing Hidan. He glared at Tobi.

"Shut the fuck up, would ya?" he huffed, suddenly very grumpy. I couldn't help myself.

"What crawled up your ass and died?"

"Suzan!" Ella scolded me. She didn't like it when I addressed people like that. Just cursing randomly was okay, but not at other people. Especially if those other people were capable of killing us with both hands tied on their back.

"Sorry," I mumbled, but Hidan smirked at me as he walked over to the couch and sat down next to Deidara, who was busying himself by making a clay-bird.

"Deidara, that's not explosive clay, is it?" Ella asked. He rolled his eyes.

"Of course not. I'm not stupid, yeah."

"Uhu, calling you stupid would be an insult to stupid people." Deidara glared at Hidan's snarky remark, and I could see he was feeling like strangling the Jashinist. I leaned against the wall, not wanting to be close to any of them. Ella, however, was stuck with Tobi who kept asking her all kinds of ridiculous questions. Add to that the knowledge we had of Tobi being an evil mastermind, and you can imagine how nervous it would make a person. She shot me a look that just screamed for help, and I was about to interrupt their conversation when Pain did it for me.

"We've reached a decision." he spoke indifferently. "We're staying with them until we find the person who is responsible for getting us here." He glanced at both me and Ella once. I didn't bother informing him that it was technically our own responsibility for making that wish, as I didn't feel like getting killed. I just thanked whatever was out there that it was summer vacation. I couldn't have handled my studies and dealing with this mess at home at the same time. Ella, on the other hand, worked from Sunday to Thursday, always in the evening. I really pitied her, and decided to try and take care of the ninja criminals as much as possible so she wouldn't be overworked.

"This place is already small as it is. Moreover, if their story is correct, then we should expect more of our members to show up soon. It'll get completely cramped. What do you intend to do about that?" Itachi asked Pain, and to be honest I'd been wondering that myself as well.

"Then we'll simply find a new and bigger place."

"I don't have that kind of money." Ella then spoke up. "The economy is terrible at the moment. I can't afford a bigger house." Pain frowned slightly.

"Girl, do you really think we couldn't get money if we wanted to?" he said, and both me and Ella were confused for a second.

"He means robbing a bank." Deidara helpfully chimed in.

"Robbing a bank?" Ella repeated, shocked. "But that's illegal!" I facepalmed, as some other members chuckled at her naiveté. Ella was often referred to others as being so innocent at times. She couldn't hurt a fly, never said any "naughty" words nor did she like any sort of arguing or fighting. Let alone breaking the law. Kakuzu scowled.

"It's necessary and the only way to make quick money. They won't suspect you, so don't worry about that." Ella frowned unhappily, but didn't protest. Pain addressed her this time.

"Ella, show Tobi and Itachi where the bank is." I blinked.

"What about their clothes?" I asked.

"Don't worry about that, mom will come to drop off some of my dad's clothes, so they can wear that." Ella reassured me.

"How the hell did you convince her?"

"I didn't have to. She wants me to donate them to the Salvation Army, but since she and dad are too busy with the restaurant she asked me to do it for her." I was about to say how lucky we were, when Pain spoke to me.

"You, in the meantime, will do some shopping. Take Deidara with you." I slowly nodded, when suddenly Hidan started to complain.

"Why can the she-male go and I can't?" he nagged, ignoring the bomber's glare. Pain's scowl deepened, but Kakuzu answered for him.

"Because you'd most likely kill someone or do something reckless and blow our cover."

"I would not, stupid heathen!"

"Yes, you would. You're staying here."

"But it's so fucking _boring_ here!" There was a silence as everyone stared at Pain, who eventually came to a decision. He looked at Hidan.

"You'll behave properly?"

"Yeah."

"You won't cause any commotion?"

"Yes, yes! Can I go?" I was wildly shaking my head, pleading with Pain to say no, as I had a bad feeling about it. Hidan in a place full of unknown, breakable objects? It was bound to go wrong in one way or another.

"Very well."

"Fuck yeah!"

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

Mom arrived at the house in about two hours. She had a bag full of clothes with her, and I helped her carry it to the doorstep. I looked a lot like her, though I had my dad's blue eyes. Hers were a dark, coffee brown color, and she had freckles all over her face, another thing I hadn't inherited. We talked about trivial things, and she asked how Suzan was doing. All in all, it was going pretty good until she insisted on getting in the house. I knew why; the last time she'd visited, it had been a complete mess inside (mostly thanks to Suzan's laziness) and we'd spent an afternoon cleaning every room. I tried to convince her to stop, as I didn't want her to find out about the ninjas. But my mom was incredibly nosy and she knew I was hiding _something_. You could see it all over my face.

"Mom, really, you should probably go and help dad out. The restaurant is always busiest on Sundays, right?" I tried to persuade her, and she would've fallen for it, had it not been for the loud _crack _coming from the inside. Probably someone (Hidan, most likely) having broken something.

"Nonsense, I want to know whether my daughter is keeping her house clean. And I want to chat with Suzan as well. She's inside, right?" She swiftly opened the front door and walked in. To my big surprise, no one was in the living room except Suzan. It seemed the others had hidden themselves. But knowing my nosy mother, she wasn't going to leave it at that.

"Hello, Suzan," she greeted the girl with a smile. "How have you been?"

"Just fine, thanks for asking."

"You should come to the restaurant more often now. We could use some extra help." my mother said casually as she walked towards the kitchen.

"Ah, I would love to!" Suzan quickly said, trying to distract my mother, but it was futile. She quickly opened the door to the kitchen. It was empty. She eyed me and Suzan suspiciously.

"Girls, if you're hiding boys in here I'd like to know."

"Boys?" I repeated, getting embarrassed. "Mother, I would do no such thing!" Knowing mom (and she was incredibly strict when it came to stuff like this) she'd probably take some drastic measures if this went wrong.

"I would hope so! You're more than old enough to take care of yourselves. Hiding men would just be very childish, especially for you, Ella." She gave me a harsh but motherly look. "I think I raised you good enough for you to know that lying is wrong." Nevertheless, she walked back into the living room, to the hallway, and inspected both me and Suzan's bedrooms carefully.

"Aha!" she suddenly exclaimed, having found something in my room. She walked out, with one of the guys' forehead protector. "I don't know what this is, but I can assume it doesn't belong to either of you?"

"Y-yes it does. It's mine, actually!" I lied, unsuccessfully, as I'd been caught off guard.

"Ella, don't be ridiculous." my mother scolded me. "Girls, I'm very disappointed! From now on I'll come and check up on you every day until you tell me who you were fooling around with! If you had company you could've just-" she stopped talking when the sound of a toilet being flushed resounded clearly through the house. After a while, the door opened. My jaw nearly dropped when I saw Itachi, wearing jeans and a dark blue vest which both belonged to dad. What the hell? His eyes were the normal black color.

"I apologize, madam. I didn't hear you come in." he said politely. My mother was just staring at him (which was rather rude, I might add) but he didn't seem to mind.

"Oh _my_." she seemed rather… flustered. Not that I couldn't understand why. After all, he was a lot handsomer than the guys you usually saw around town. But why was he doing this? "Well, this is certainly unexpected." She turned to me and was clearly waiting for an explanation. I didn't really have any.

"We… wanted to introduce you," Suzan started, making it up as she went "but you wouldn't really listen to us."

"Oh. I see. Then mind introducing me now?"

"Of… of course. Mother, meet… Isaac. He just… recently moved into my neighborhood." My lying was bad, but my mother was too focused on Itachi to notice. He still was rather stoic but the expression on his face had softened a little bit.

"A pleasure to meet you, madam."

"Dianne Garret. Just call me Dianne." mom answered happily. She'd kept her maiden name. My last name was my dad's, which was Livesey. Mom had told me that if I wanted to change it I could, but to be honest, I didn't really like the sound of "Ella Garret". "Ella Livesey" sounded a lot more elegant.

"As you wish, Dianne." I was under the impression my mother was about to melt at any given second. She cleared her throat, though, in an attempt to stay composed.

"So this is yours, then? I found it in my daughter's bedroom." She tried to look severe, which failed, I might add. She handed over the forehead protector and he nodded.

"Ah, yes, that. I'd forgotten it there." He didn't even bother to reject the implications of finding "his" stuff in _my _bedroom _on my bed. _

"I hope that you'll treat my daughter right, then?"

"Mother, _please_! It's not like that!" Naturally, she didn't believe me.

"Of course. I'll treat her like a queen."

My face was positively red now, and Suzan was giggling, probably enjoying how I was being completely and utterly embarrassed with this. I finally managed to get my mother away from Itachi and out of the house. When me and her were standing outside and I accompanied her to her car, she told me how she was going to tell all her friends about the "prince charming my daughter had seduced".

In the background, I could hear Suzan laughing and I can tell you this is the first time I've ever really, REALLY wanted to strangle her.

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

"What was _that _all about?" I asked through my laughing. Itachi returned to his stoic self and didn't answer. The other Akatsuki members appeared from wherever the hell they'd been hiding. It seemed that the people designated to accompany me and Ella had changed into the clothes Ella's mother had brought over. For some it was a little wide and for others a little tight, but it would have to do. I looked questionably from Itachi to Pain, wondering what the spectacle from a minute ago had been all about. Deidara answered me instead.

"You heard her, right? She would've come to check up on you every day if we didn't do something. Killing her isn't an option, considering your father would probably start suspecting something and we'd blow our cover." he said with a shrug. I supposed that it made sense. It would've been an incredible nuisance to them to hide every other day. And Itachi had been the best choice to interfere. Considering Pain and Kakuzu were just definitely not dating material, Deidara was kind of girlish with his hair, Tobi was wearing a mask and Hidan just emitted an aura of _I-want-to-kill-something, _the Uchiha had been the _only _choice, actually_. _

"I suppose so." I turned to look at Kakuzu who was scolding Hidan. Apparently, the forehead protector that had been found, was his.

"You're an idiot." he snapped at him, and received a glare in return.

"And you're a fucking heathen!"

"Enough." Pain ordered, obviously in a bad mood, and the arguing stopped. "I suggest you all leave immediately. You know what to do." he spoke as he walked over to the couch and sat down, studying the remote. I looked at Deidara and Hidan, and knew this was going to be freaking impossible. At least they looked normal. Eh, semi-normal. Both of them were wearing simple jeans. Deidara had a simple, dark brown shirt on and Hidan had wisely (I can't believe I used "wisely" and "Hidan" in the same sentence) chosen a white hoodie so he could hide his ridiculous hair color. Someone had convinced him to leave his scythe behind, but he refused to give up his amulet.

"Alright, we should go." I decided, but Ella stopped me.

"You take the car. The bank is only two blocks away." I nodded and she threw me the car keys. "Don't forget your phone."

"Yes, _mom_." I said, rolling my eyes, and grabbing my second-rate phone from the small, glass coffee table in the living room.

"What's a car?" Hidan asked with a frown, as the word "car" was completely foreign to him.

"You'll see.

Five minutes later both of them were in the car, a blue, cheap Volvo. Hidan (who'd managed to get in the passenger's seat next to me after a fight with Deidara) was leaning over to me, looking at the steering wheel and other parts. He kept asking questions about the car. Deidara was simply staring out the window, much more fascinated by how my world looked. He didn't really ask any questions though. Eventually I got bored and turned the radio on. I forgot that a friend of mine had left his hardcore metal CD in there the last time he'd been in my car. Also, the volume was max. It had been after a wild party and most of my friends had been drunk enough to scream along with the song.

The look on Hidan's face was priceless. He was pressed against his seat, staring with wide eyes at the radio. Deidara had his hands on his ears.

"TURN THAT HELLISH PIECE OF SHIT OFF!" Hidan screeched at me.

"WHY? I THINK IT'S QUITE FUN!" I screamed back, over the car, ignoring the look other people outside the car were giving me, as we were in front of a red light. "_BABY, HOLD ME! THIS KNIFE HAS PIERCED MY SOUL! I SIT ALONE WHILE I'M-" _Hidan managed to figure out that you had to press one of those buttons to move on to the next song. I didn't like screamo music at all, but just yelling with it to annoy the others was quite funny. Suddenly a completely different song came up (which made me wonder whether my friend was bipolar).

"_I wanna fuuuuuck you, fuuuuuck you-"_

He changed it again.

"_I just had seeeeeeeex, and it felt so GOOOOOOD-"_

He changed it once again, with a look on his face that told me he was basically being driven insane.

"_Ass, titties, ass 'n titties, ass, ass, titties-"_

"THE FUCK?" Deidara burst out in laughter as Hidan gaped at the radio. "What the fuck is wrong with you people? You call this perverted shit music?"

"-_titties, ass 'n titties-"_

"What's wrong, Hidan? You don't like ass and titties?" I teased him, and he glowered at me, punching the radio. "HEY! Don't do that!" I called out in a panic, and quickly turned it on to the next song, which was just a random pop song about dancing. I sighed relieved when he calmed down, until he started bothering me with questions I'd rather not answer. Probably as a revenge.

"So, brat, you still didn't really answer me this morning." I feigned ignorance.

"What are you talking about?" I drove a little faster.

"Are you a virgin or aren't you?" I blushed, and I could see him smirking from the corners of my eyes.

"Are _you_?" I countered.

"No, of course not. What chick could ever resist my fine ass?"

"The ones who aren't deaf, blind or retarded, yeah." I laughed amused, and Hidan was about to yell at Deidara for that comment, when I parked the car right in front of the largest supermarket in town and swiftly got out. They followed me inside, and Hidan kept bugging me since I'd dodged his question. It got to the point where I instructed him to go get some vegetables just to get rid of him. He made a face.

"I don't like vegetables!" he protested.

"You realize you just ate tomato soup yesterday?"

"Yeah, but I was fucking starving, okay?"

"Don't be selfish, yeah. Not everyone hates vegetables." Deidara commented. Hidan snarled at Deidara and another discussion began. I just decided to leave them behind and go collect the necessary products myself with the shopping cart. They followed me, still arguing loudly, but I managed to ignore them. I got toothbrushes for everyone, underwear and socks for the guys, food products and other stuff. I decided to buy everything as quickly as possible, paying with my creditcard, and loaded everything in bags, making Hidan and Deidara carry most of it. So far, things had gone excellent, considering the circumstances. I mean, Hidan hadn't killed anyone yet and Deidara hadn't blown up anything yet either.

I wasn't quite sure how I felt about the guys themselves, though. When I'd been watching_ Naruto_, I thought Deidara had been pretty cool because how could you _not _like explosions? I could even admit that Itachi was awesome, despite being a general Uchiha hater. I felt rather indifferent about Pain and Kakuzu. I thought Hidan had been an amusing character. Tobi was, well… great comic relief at first. And then he did a one-eighty and suddenly turned into the story's main antagonist. Now, I was quite frankly intimidated by Pain and Kakuzu, I felt incredibly awkward around Itachi (I was never good at dealing with stoic people), I thought Hidan was just a straight up asshole, Tobi made me nervous and my opinion of Deidara was the only one who hadn't changed.

I looked at the two arguing behind me while we were heading towards the exit of Walmart and was contemplating recent events when I suddenly (and rather roughly) bumped into what seemed like a wall which decided to rudely push me back, and fell down on the ground. I blinked, staring up at a rather large man, who seemed rather grumpy. He glared at me, obviously pissed, and I got up. Behind me, Hidan and Deidara had stopped arguing.

"Sorry," I muttered, straightening my black jacket as I got up again.

"Watch where the hell you're going, idiot!" the man snarled. Me, being the outspoken person that I was, didn't appreciate this. Of course I just ignored the fact that the guy was larger, taller and probably a lot stronger than I. Hell, if I survived a few deadly ninjas dropping into my house I could probably survive some fatass yelling at me.

"I already said sorry. No need to be an asshole about it." I huffed irritated, picking up the contents of the bag I'd dropped when accidentally bumping into him, then standing straight and facing him again. He seemed really pissed now.

"Whatcha just call me, girl? You better watch your filthy mouth!" he stated in such an obnoxious voice that it almost made me cringe.

Let me explain the outburst that is coming up: I'd already been restless because of the whole lethal-ninjas-in-my-goddamn-house thing, then annoyed by the two morons who'd been loudly screaming at each other the entire time we'd been in Walmart, and now, when I bumped into someone by accident, _fell on the ground because of HIM,_ and even fucking APOLOGIZED to his giant ass, the fucker still had the _nerve _to tell me to watch my mouth when HE had called me an idiot first AND shoved me. So.

"Shut the FUCK up, you fucking shitfaced dickhead! I have half a mind to KICK THE SHIT out of your fatass right now, you understand? I fucking said sorry already, what else do you fucking want from me? I can curse and swear at you however I fucking want, it's a FREE country, if you don't like it you can kiss my ass, got that, YOU FUCKER?" There was a silence all around me. _Oh, fuck. _I instantly thought, staring anxiously at the man, all my anger instantly ebbing away and making room for panic. His face was getting red, and I was waiting for him to scream at me. Hell, even attack me or something.

"You…." he managed to get out in his rage, his face bloated and I would've laughed had I not been at the risk of getting my ass kicked.

"U-uhm… sorry?" I stammered, but the damage had already been done.

"WHO DO YOU THINK YOU'RE TALKING TO, YOU LITTLE WHORE? I SHOULD-"

It went in slow-motion. Like those action movies. Or maybe in the comedy movies when something went horribly wrong and they slowed it down for dramatic effect. No doubt I should've been punched in the face by now and I'd cursed my potty-mouth the minute those words had left it. But then I saw a fist, going straight towards the man's face. And then the man flew. He flew through the air like a bird. And then landed his ass on a pile of cans that had been previously neatly arranged by some poor schmuck who'd probably done that with the thought that he'd get a promotion or something.

But all of that was irrelevant as I realized that blood was spurting from the man's face and Hidan had probably been a little too enthusiastic in throwing his punch. People were yelling, security guards were rushing towards us and I only remember wondering how it must've felt, flying through the air liked that after getting your face bashed in by the fist of an S-ranked criminal while I was pushed forward, out of the store by Deidara, past the confused security guards while Hidan was causing chaos inside of the store. And then I remember thinking, "What about the security cameras?" and realized my face would probably be plastered all over the local news if they'd gotten a good angle on it. Awesome. I'd be famous.

Before I knew it me and the blonde terrorist were running towards the car with the bags in our hands. We basically threw them in the back of the car and waited for Hidan to catch up already. Deidara seemed quite relaxed. I was going apeshit. I'd never had to deal with a situation like this before, so I didn't know what to do. Deidara tried to talk me into calming down but that didn't work much and he just got annoyed with me and gave up. I could hear screams coming from the building. What was Hidan doing in there?

Then we saw him running towards us. His hands were covered in _blood_.

* * *

><p><strong>ZOMG. Hidan covered in blood and punching random people? NO WAI. Y WULD HE DO DAT? HE'S SUCH A NICE PERSON, LOL :D<strong>

**Note that the songs mentioned in this fic actually exist and aren't mine. The first one is from Blessthefall - Dying Black Rose. Second one Akon - I wanna fuck you. Third one also Akon - I just had sex. Last one DJ Assault- Ass 'n Titties. **

**Next chapter will switch to how Ella's trip to the bank went. LOLZ. That should be interesting. **

**TOBI TIME :D**

**Don't forget to feed me REVIEWZ.**

**AND AND AND AND, suggestions, hook-ups, etc, etc...**

**BIG THANKS TO_ yyh-ygo-fma_, _whatsername810_, _Deidara's Dragon_, _Loki7744, Broken Names, The-First-Polymythical_ and _WolvesKey_ for reviewing! It's very much appreciated! ^_^**

**BYE BYE NAO.**


	4. Obvious bank robber is obvious

**Well, damn. I wasn't supposed to update until Friday, but here I am. All because of your reviews.**

**So, here you go. Another, rather long, chapter! ENJOY :D**

**P.S: I still don't know what the pairings should be T_T So a little help with that?**

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><p><strong>Ella<strong>

I was tense walking all the way to the bank. Ever get that feeling, when you're doing something wrong (like skipping school or smoking pot outside or whatever you kids do these days), it seems like everyone is staring at you, even when they're not? I was feeling that, but a lot more intensely. For one, we were about to rob a bank. There were cameras everywhere! I trusted Tobi to be quick about it. I had an acquaintance who worked at the bank, and I remembered the location of the giant vault from a conversation we'd had. We'd brought a large, black bag with us, which the masked man was carrying at the moment. I was biting my nails in pure anxiety.

"Ella-chan? Are you okay?" I nearly jumped when I felt a hand on my arm. I glanced at Tobi, who'd been walking on my left, and tried to act normal. He probably knew that I knew about his little secret, but he didn't seem too concerned, as he hadn't talked to me about it yet.

"Y-yes, I'm fine." I lied through my teeth. Tobi hummed contemplatively, tapping his finger lightly on the bottom of his mask.

"Ella-chan doesn't sound fine to Tobi! Maybe she should've stayed at home?" I shook my head.

"It's alright. Pain wanted me to go, so I'll go."

"Ella-chan is so obedient!" Tobi said in awe. "Ella-chan is a good girl!" I smiled somewhat at that.

"If you say so, Tobi." I now looked at Itachi. He'd been silent the entire time. It was beginning to make me feel a little uncomfortable. He didn't seem at all interested in talking though, he preferred observing the road and the cars and people on bicycles driving past us. He seemed rather fascinated, almost even amazed, by it which was an expression I wasn't really used to seeing on his face. I giggled, but immediately stopped when he glanced at me. It had just been a blank stare, but even so, it felt like I was doing something wrong every time he looked at me.

Every time a car went by Tobi made a dramatic jump, pretending to have been frightened by the vehicle. He played his role very well, I had to admit that much. People where giving him weird stares because of his mask, but luckily enough no one said anything and just walked on by.

"We're nearly there." I said, spotting the bank at the corner of the street. The two suddenly stopped, and eventually so did I.

"Ella, stay here." Itachi said coolly. "Tobi and I will return shortly." True, I'd given them the exact location of the vault, and the security guards (even if they had guns) were powerless, considering they could be easily put under a genjutsu. Still, my knees couldn't help but shake ever so lightly at the thought of me being involved in something so _wrong. _People had worked hard to earn that money! It wasn't ours, and yet we were going to steal it because we wanted a bigger house! I felt awful about it. I'd always had a very strong sense of what was right and wrong, and this just made my conscience squirm.

"Don't worry, Ella-chan! This will be a piece of cake for Tobi!" Tobi said cheerfully, putting his thumbs up.

"That's not… what I'm angsting about." I sighed, putting my hands on my hips. "It just feels so wrong."

"Ella-chan is so sweet! But orders are orders. SOOOOOO, we have no choice, Ella-chan!"

"Alright. Just… go. I wanted to get this over with as soon as possible." The two stalked off, and I just hoped everything went smoothly.

My conscience wasn't going to give me any sleep that night, that much was certain.

* * *

><p><strong>Tobi<strong>

Robbing the bank was a piece of cake. It really was. Itachi walked in, looking at every guard with weapons in case something went wrong and he needed to put them under a genjutsu, but I simply teleported directly in the vault. Or at least, I thought it had been the vault. Apparently my calculations had been slightly off and I ended up right in front of it. I quickly corrected my mistake, and luckily no alarm had been set off. At least I didn't hear anything. I stared at the large pile of money in front of me, and underneath me. Almost everywhere, actually. Foreign paper money, with the pictures of some old men on them.

I quickly put as many bills as I could manage into the black bag, and got out again, and decided to appear right in front of the bank, being in the line of sight of all the security guards and employees working in the bank, with my bag of money. Itachi stared – no, rather he _glared _– at me. I pretended not to notice as I waited for him to get out as well. Suddenly I heard screaming.

"Someone's broken into the vault!" I frowned. _What? I didn't hear any – oh, I see. Silent alarms. _I smirked amused, and suddenly every security guard stared at me through the glass windows of the bank. I chuckled, and looked at Ella, who was standing far away, with a worried look on her face. She was truly very fragile, emotionally. If stealing put her under this kind of stress, I wondered what she would do if I killed someone in front of her. She'd probably be scarred for the rest of her life. Itachi calmly walked out, followed by guards who'd evidently targeted me.

"You! With the bag!" a guard called out.

"Oh no! Let's run! RUN, RUN, RUUUUUUUUUN!" I called out dramatically, running goofily towards Ella. Whatever color she'd had, had successfully completely drained out of her face as I dragged her away. I left the guards for Itachi to deal with. Besides, I needed to talk to this girl in private.

"T-Tobi! Where are we going?" she asked feebly. I pulled her into a dark alley and stopped, letting go of her wrist. I could hear her gasp, and she knew what was coming for her. There was a silence, before I finally turned to face her. She seemed so scared, the poor thing. I held back an amused chuckle.

"Ella-chan is a good girl, isn't she?" I spoke, albeit in my normal voice. She stared at me with wide-eyes, and nodded heavily. I wanted to laugh at this display, but it was time to be serious. It had been a long time since I last saw someone that was this scared of me (and rightfully so). "So Ella-chan won't tell anyone about Tobi, will she? Nor will Suzan-chan. Otherwise Tobi won't be happy." She was trying to pull herself together, and took a deep breath.

"I'm not suicidal. I won't tell anyone." she eventually responded. I patted her on the head.

"Smart girl." I said softly. "NOW LET'S GO!" She flinched when I suddenly yelled in my goofy voice, and I started dragging her away again. When we were back at the main street, Itachi had already caught up with us. He glanced at Ella, narrowed his eyes when seeing me, glanced back at Ella, but didn't say anything. I smiled lightly underneath my mask. This girl was very amusing. I decided that I would scare her more from then on. It felt good!

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

We were walking home now. I was shaking. We had a bag full of stolen money. They knew what we looked like! Well, what Tobi and Itachi looked like. My knees were seriously shaking now. I glanced at every stranger who walked past us, getting paranoid and almost losing my mind over the entire ordeal. _Oh my god. That hobo knows! he keeps staring at me! He's going to call the police, and then the police will come and arrest me, and mother will cry and my father won't ever talk to be again, and I'll be thrown in jail and get raped and beaten and, and –_

"Ella," I felt a hand on my shoulder "you're hyperventilating." Itachi dryly noted. Of course he didn't do anything about it, he just stared at me.

"OH NO! ELLA-CHAN, ARE YOU ALRIGHT?" Tobi basically screamed into my ear, which didn't help my condition. "DO YOU NEED TO GO TO A DOCTOR?"

"N-no, Tobi, I'm fine."

"Are you suuuuuuure?"

"Yes, Tobi."

"Really?"

"_Yes_."

"Honestly really?"

"I'm SURE, Tobi!"

"But… but… but are you _certain_?" I rubbed my forehead but didn't respond anymore. I just kept my hand up on my head, trying to figure out how I'd gotten into this mess. I didn't respond to Tobi's cries. "Ella-chan? ELLA-CHAN?" Tobi yelled, suddenly grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me. "ITACHI-SAN! I THINK I BROKE ELLA-CHAN!"

"Actually, I think you are still in the process of breaking her." I gaped at him, as Tobi suddenly stopped shaking me.

"Did Itachi-san just make a _joke_?" He sounded as surprised as I felt. When Tobi said "joke" I could hear his real voice for a second again, and it sounded like he was amused.

"I… I think so?" I muttered unsurely. We both stared at him, and he stared back. Eventually he sighed and kept on walking, heading out in front of us. I hesitantly looked at Tobi. "So was he joking or wasn't he?" Tobi shrugged.

"Who knoooows?"

We kept on walking and I thought about it for a long time. Between the three of us, there were no secrets at all. I was pretty sure Itachi knew about Tobi and vice versa. So, that "joke" (if it had been one, as I still wasn't quite sure yet) had been from the real Itachi. With that, I mean the compassionate brother. Not the psychopath. I scratched the back of my head contemplatively. To my annoyance, I discovered my hair was a mess and decided to pull it up in a bun so it looked somewhat decent, at least. I stopped to do this.

If I hadn't stopped, I wouldn't have bumped into the man who'd been running straight towards me. If I hadn't stopped, I would've never found out about what had happened. I fell down on the ground, surprised. The man looked frantic. He pulled me up quickly.

"Sorry, miss!" he almost yelled at me, and wanted to run along, but I stopped him. Suzan had many times told me I was too friendly sometimes. I'd even be concerned about complete strangers, like now. I glanced at Tobi and Itachi, who'd now stopped as well and were looking at me and the man.

"Are you alright?" I asked. He wildly shook his head,

"Haven't you heard?" he questioned. "At the Walmart, there was… there was a complete massacre!" I could swear my heart skipped a beat. Not in a good way. I just stare at him, petrified at the news. "My wife was shopping there! I need to go!" I didn't even notice the man running along again. A massacre. People had been _killed. _

"Ella-chan?" Tobi asked slowly. "Ella-chan is hyperventilating again!"

"They… they killed… those innocent people were… and… and…." I tried to calm down but I couldn't. "Suzan is… Suzan…."

"Ella, calm down." I barely heard Itachi as I thought about it. A massacre? A slaughter, in Walmart? All those people, dead. It was unforgivable. If Suzan had been there, what if someone recognized her? What if she got locked up for the rest of her life? But why had this happened? And those poor people, their families would be devastated.

"I… I can't believe…." I had my hand on my mouth, and felt very light-headed. This was a nightmare, wasn't it? This wasn't real. There was no way something that horrible could happen. I could barely breathe anymore.

"Ella." I felt a firm grip on both my shoulders and slowly looked up, staring into Itachi's Sharingan. "Calm down." I finally managed to regain my composure somewhat.

"R-right." I whispered. "I n-need to… we need to go home. Now."

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>_  
><em>

_I need to get rid of the car, or at least hide it, _I thought. _There's a chance someone will recognize it. Hidan and Deidara will have to stay inside for a long time as well. _I felt sick to my stomach as I drove through the streets. Not because of what had just happened, but because of how calm I felt. I frightened myself. How could I be so level-headed when it was a fact that innocent people had just been killed in the very store I'd just walked out of? How could I think about what to do after a massacre had taken place? Still, my hands weren't shaking and I could think very clearly.

I knew I hadn't been the most caring person at times, but I didn't think of myself as lacking in empathy. Perhaps it was the shock? Maybe it hadn't sunk in yet? I glanced at Hidan's hands, the blood dripping off them and on his pants. I now noticed that both he and Deidara were staring at me.

"What is it?" I asked softly, looking back at the road again.

"You're awfully calm. I was expecting you to freak out on me, or something." Hidan stated, still a little surprised. I didn't respond.

"She _was_ going nuts, but that was before you came walking out with all that blood on you, yeah. Then her face went blank, like now." Deidara noted. I suddenly felt so angry. So angry at myself for seemingly not being able to care. What was wrong with me? People were dead, human beings with families, someone's brother, mother, sister or child. Why wasn't I upset at that? My hands started shaking. I then felt so disgusted with myself, but also confused and scared. I was still waiting for everything to sink in, but what if it never did? What if I couldn't bring myself to care? I nearly ran over a guy who'd been trying to cross the street as I was worrying about it.

"Woah. Go ahead and yell at me, if it makes ya drive any better."

"Feel free to rip his head off, yeah. He can't die from that anyway."

"Shut it, Deidara-chan."

"Don't call me that, asshole."

"SHUT UP!" I screamed, and pulled over. There was an instant silence, as both of them curiously awaited my reaction. Every muscle in my body was tense. I turned over to look at Hidan, who'd been sitting next to my in the passenger's seat again.. "_Why? _Why did you kill them?" My voice was steady. It was comical how clear-headed I was about all of this. I don't think I'd realized how serious the situation was, yet.

"Uh, well, after I punched that dude, a guard or something walked up to me and tried to arrest me, and from there it kinda got out of hand." He shrugged dismissively.

That's when it really hit home.

These guys were _murderers. _I hadn't really thought about it, but now it dawned on me what they exactly were. They didn't value anyone's life. It was just kill, kill, kill.

I stopped the car at a red light, and closed my eyes, breathing in deeply.

"You're a monster." I whispered, staring at the red light above me. When I looked at him again, he looked insulted.

"Oi, there's no need to-"

"You killed innocent people. I don't care how you want to justify it, it's a fact, and it's unforgivable."

"Hey! I only might have killed those, like, what… three, maybe four security guards, alright? You're just overreacting. And they were trying to arrest me. I didn't go around punching mothers and their children, for fuck's sake! What do you take me for?"

"Even so, they were just doing their jobs! You could've just knocked them out instead! There was no need to… to _murder _them!" He snorted, but didn't respond otherwise, folding his arms and staring out the window as I started to drive again when the light above me turned green. So, it hadn't been as bad as I'd thought, but still, four guards? He went too far. He should've just incapacitated them somehow! I eventually pulled over when we finally arrived at the house, and got out of the car as soon as possible. Deidara had been silent for most of the ride, but when we got out he followed me as I waltzed into the house, towards my room. I completely ignored Pain and Kakuzu.

"Hey, Suzan!" I slammed my bedroom door in Deidara's face, who grunted, probably having hit his nose. "Goddamn… relax, yeah! I just wanna talk!"

"Go away!" I yelled, lying down on my bed, pushing my face onto my pillow. In hindsight, I should've known something like this was bound to happen. I should be thankful it hadn't been any worse. Still, I felt so horrible. If I hadn't yelled at that man, something like this would've never happened. Indirectly, it was my fault those men were dead. I sniffled, feeling tears welling up in my eyes as I was starting to understand the seriousness of the situation.

"Just… ugh. I'm coming in, yeah!"

"No!" Despite my protests, the door opened and Deidara walked in, closing it behind him. He eyed me with a frown.

"Relax." He sat down on my chair which had been against my crappy old desk, and continued to stare at me, expectantly. Almost as if he was waiting for me to burst out, crying. I gritted my teeth. I would _not _shed a tear. It was an ego thing, I suppose. Here I was, nearly crying about the deaths of three unknown guards I'd indirectly caused, in front of a guy who'd seen much, much worse and had done much worse than that. It was humiliating. I bit back my tears.

"What is it?" I snapped. I could hear Kakuzu snarling at Hidan in the background, no doubt having found out about what he'd pulled off in the store. At that moment, for once, I really wanted to see Hidan decapitated again.

"Nothing." Deidara responded, trying to sound nonchalant. I raised my eyebrows.

"Just wanted to chat? Would you like some tea and biscuits, too, while we're at it?" I replied sarcastically, turning on my side and showing him my back. There was a silence, in which I could clearly heard Hidan cussing and Kakuzu's voice getting louder.

"Are you okay? You look kind of, eh, messed up, yeah."

"I'm not okay, thanks for asking." I mumbled. Eventually I sighed and sat up, facing him now. "Just give me some time, okay? I'm not used to… this ninja stuff. At all." The blonde smirked at me.

"More like you suck at it. You'd make a horrible ninja." I rolled my eyes and lied back down. He got up and left without another word. I was in that position for a long time as I heard the men arguing in the living room. I almost fell asleep, when after five minutes there was a knock at my door. I ignored it. The knock got louder. I still ignored it, stubbornly. Then the door opened and there were footsteps. The sound of someone sitting down on the chair (and I had a pretty good idea who it was). When I heard an exasperated sigh I was certain.

"Go away, Hidan."

"Could you not make this harder than it already is?" I didn't bother facing him and stayed quiet. "Stupid fuckin' Leader making me do this…." he mumbled, but I could hear him. "Look, brat, want me to apologize? Well, sorry. There you have it. Now stop sulking, it's pissing me off." For a few seconds I lay perfectly still.

"Why do you even care?" I then asked, finally sitting up straight and looking at him. He seemed very irritated.

"It would be kind of annoying to have an emotional wreck with us, and we might even have to kill you." I gulped, paling at hearing this. He quickly raised his hands. "Just joking!" he quickly said with an apologetic grin. I growled and cursed, considering throwing my lamp at his head. "Not funny?" Maybe it would shatter and I would be lucky enough to get glass in his eye.

"This isn't a joke." I hissed through my teeth. Truly, I hadn't felt _this… _well, homicidal in a very long time. In fact, I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt such a strong urge to attack someone with the intent to seriously injure them. I held back because I would probably get my ass handed to me pretty much immediately. I wouldn't be able to even land a scratch on him. Knowing that pissed me off even more.

"It isn't to me either." Hidan said, but the amused smirk he was giving me told me otherwise. He suddenly had a very interested look in his eyes as he eyed me up.

"Then STOP being so DAMN casual about it!" I spat fiercely.

"Well aren't you little miss sunshine." That stupid smirk wouldn't leave his face. It was_ infuriating_. But I wasn't about to attack him. That would be suicide.

"Please… just get out." I tried, restraining my voice so I wouldn't shout. I was trembling with all the anger bottled up inside me.

"You know, if you feel like letting it all out, you should. I promise I won't do anything." I glowered at him like I never glowered at anyone else before. "I'm serious. Leader told me to let you, since he thinks I deserve it. Go ahead and scream at me all you-" the words had barely left his mouth and I was already on a tirade.

I don't remember what I said, but I know there was a lot of shouting the word "fuck" involved. I threatened with the most horrible things I could imagine, and with every threat his stupid, ridiculous smirk just grew wider and wider. I don't remember the last time I yelled like this at anyone. In fact, I don't think I ever did. I didn't even see the door open and Deidara, Ella, Itachi and Tobi watching me go off on Hidan. It felt like I'd been screaming for hours.

"…so, so just FUCK YOU. ALRIGHT?" I finished my incredibly long rant full of swearing. My voice was rather hoarse and I coughed, panting when I was finished.

"Holy shit. Where did that all of _that_ come from?" the Jashinist said, almost amazed. "That was awesome."

"You're not supposed to say that!" I said, agitatedly and still glaring at him. The asshole just chuckled. Ella then walked in, eyeing me worriedly as I collapsed on my bed, tired of screaming for so long. She then looked at Hidan warily.

"What, you gonna scream at me too, princess? Have at it."

"No, I think Suzan did enough screaming for everyone here." Ella responded soberly, and sat down next to me. I, however, was more concerned about her. I knew how emotionally fragile she was.

"You okay?" Ella smiled sadly at me.

"No. But… I can get through it, I think." I grabbed her hand and squeezed it reassuringly. "We just need time, right?" she asked with uncertainty in her voice, and I nodded.

"How _touching. _Can you go make some food now?" Hidan whined. Ella stared at him, shocked by his audacity, but before I even had a chance to snap at him, the others did it for me.

"Hidan is a very bad boy!"

"What are you, stupid? That's not cool, yeah."

"Hidan, I suggest you leave." The Jashinist looked like he wanted to argue with Itachi, but eventually got up and exited the room. Itachi now looked at Ella, who eventually got up from my bed as if she'd understood the look he'd been giving her or something. She pulled me up as well.

"Come on, you're gonna help me prepare the food." she decided, and almost dragged me to the kitchen. So far, she seemed to be taking it okay. When in the living room, though, Pain wanted to talk to Ella about buying a larger house, and I decided to go ahead and pick what to eat. I'd bought some chicken, so that could be cooked in the oven, and lots of vegetables. Oh, yes, a LOT. Needless to say, when me and Ella had finally finished cooking, I put extra vegetables on Hidan's plate. I hadn't forgotten that he hated those. He shot me a glare, but then smirked right afterwards, dropping his plate "accidentally".

"Oops." he said innocently. I really felt like just… harming him in whatever way possible, but I managed to keep my cool. Pain ordered him to clean it up, and he threw the vegetables in the trash gladly. Suddenly, my phone rang. I pulled it out my pocket, picking up immediately.

"Hello?" I said as I wanted to stand up and walk out the kitchen, but Pain shook his head and I remained seated. It seemed he didn't trust me.

"_Suze? Hey, how have you been?" _I nearly choked on the carrot I'd been chewing, when I recognized the voice of Wyatt, Ella's older brother.

"W-Wyatt?" I said with a gasp. Ella's eyes widened.

"_Yeah, it's me."_

"I uhm… I'm alright, what about you? You haven't called in ages, you know. Ella's been worried about you and Eva." Eva, Ella's younger sibling, lived with Wyatt in Iowa. Wyatt was twenty-eight years old, working as a car salesman, and seventeen, soon-to-be eighteen. We didn't see them very often, though. Ella held out her hand, wanting to talk to her big brother.

"_Yeah, we've been fine. Hey, is Ella around you?"_

"Yeah, she's demanding the phone, actually. Why?"

"Put it on loudspeaker!" Ella hissed when I refused to give it to her. I complied. Now his voice resounded through the kitchen. Everyone was as silent as the grave.

"_Don't tell her this, but… hey, you know how it's Eva's birthday in three weeks, right? Well, she really misses Ella, so I thought it would be nice if she could stay at your place. She'd be close to mom and dad, too."_

"Eh, Wyatt, that's not a very good idea." I said, seeing Pain narrow his eyes. "We… me and Ella are uh, we're just moving out the house, you know? We found a new, bigger place. So it would be-"

"_Really? Oh, I don't think Eva would mind helping you guys out. She just wants to see Ella again. I would come if I could, but I really need to work." _

"It's really not a good time-"

"_Don't worry about it! She won't be any trouble, I promise. So, we'll see you in three weeks?"_

"Wyatt, would you please-"

"_Eva__ was so happy when I told her she could go. She really misses Ella so much. She said it would be a great way to celebrate her birthday! Staying at her sister's house, I mean."_

"Wyatt-"

"_Alright, that's settled then? I'll talk to you later. Let it be a surprise to Ella, so don't tell her okay? Bye, Suze."_

"Wyatt!" He hung up. "Stupid… manipulative… son of a bitch…." I muttered as I put my phone away. He really was the most manipulative person I knew.

"Don't worry about it!" Ella said before any of the Akatsuki could complain. "I'll just call him back tomorrow and cancel the date. No big deal."

This reminded me of something. Something that had been very important, before the Akatsuki came crashing in our house, that is. It had been the very reason why we'd gone to the mall on that fateful day in the first place. I frowned deeply, staring at Ella, a little irritated that we'd forgotten all about it. Ella blinked, a little confused as to why I was looking at her. So were some other people who were sitting at the table.

"What's with that look, yeah?" Deidara asked eventually. I sighed.

"Ella, weren't you supposed to go on a date today?"

She paled.

* * *

><p><strong>LOLDATE.<strong>

**It seems Akatsuki is killing Ella's social life. POOR GIRL. **

**Like I said, I have no idea who to pair them up with at this point. I mean, really, I think I got their personalities down right, but I'm not sure who they would fit with best D:**

**ANYWHORE, PUT IT IN YOUR REVIEW.**

**You'll review, right? RIGHT? **

**Thanks to all the guys who subscribed and faved this story! Even if you don't review. I understand. Clicking on a button and writing a sentence or two is too much effort for little old me (I love guilt-tripping people).**

**BIG THANKS TO _Nightwish-girl77_, _Akatsuki's Bitch_, _The Ultimate Baka_,_ Broken Names_, _whatsername810_, _Deidara's Dragon_ and _yyh-ygo-fma_ for reviewing! You guys keep me motivated! :D**


	5. Bloody rituals

**Aaaand I'm back within a day. Of course. I was bored out of my mind, so yeah.**

**ENJOOOOY**

**And don't forget to review when you're done. They make me happy :D**

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

We were so lucky that Suzan had lots of friends and acquaintances. A friend of hers had a brother who was a real estate agent, and had agreed to help look for a bigger house. When asked how we'd gotten the money, Suzan said she'd inherited it from a great-aunt who'd just recently passed away. She was always so good in lying. I listened to Suzan urge the man to be quick about it, as she wanted to move out within three weeks. She was pacing up through the room as she was persuading him to put in a little extra effort. She'd always had a way with words. At the same time, I decided to call up Jack later, who was supposed to be my date for today.

Now I tried to think of what I was going to say to my parents when they asked how I'd gotten all that money. I could just say I'd won the lottery and forgot to tell them. They'd believe me. I was their sweet little girl, I rarely lied to them and I always helped them out with whatever they needed. It really paid off to be good sometimes.

I glanced to the side, at Kakuzu, who was reading some book I didn't recognize while sitting next to me on the couch. The book in question probably belonged to Suzan. I stared at him for a while, wondering how it would feel like being held together only by stitches.

"Stop staring." he abruptly grumbled, and I nearly jumped up, being startled by it.

"S-sorry." I muttered. "Uhm…." I started, and he looked at me, annoyed. "What are you reading?" I asked curiously.

"One of Suzan's books." He dryly stated the obvious, which probably meant that he didn't want to be bothered.

"Sorry for bothering you." I spoke softly, fidgeting with my grey sweater. There was a loud sigh on his part.

"It's about a man named Freud." he stated. I blinked, confused about why he'd suddenly changed his mind.

"Oh, right. I remember Suzan writing an essay about his works." I also remembered how she'd kept procrastinating until I had to lecture her and nag until she eventually did it, two days before the deadline. How she'd managed to make it was beyond me. She was just really good in what she did and what she studied for. It made me jealous some times. I was probably going to be stuck taking care of the family restaurant while Suzan would chase her dreams to get her PhD in psychology.

"Hmm. She's studying psychology?"

"Yes. She's a very bright girl." I answered proudly. I only finished my high school, when I decided my passion was cooking. That was my dream. I'd never asked to run a restaurant. I knew the basics, mind you, but it just didn't seem very appealing to me. Wyatt refused to take over and Eva was still too young, though, and I just couldn't say no to my parents (or anyone, for that matter). In any case, I wasn't very suited for school. My intelligence was average. I wasn't a fast thinker like Suzan, nor was I as good as relying on logic instead of my feelings. I appreciated those qualities Suzan had, though they could annoy me all the same as well.

"She certainly has a colorful vocabulary." Kakuzu noted coolly, flipping a page as he continued reading.

"I'm used to it." I merely shrugged.

"So am I, unfortunately." Kakuzu glanced at Hidan who was taking a nap on the armchair, snoring loudly. I chuckled for a second, though my mood instantly dampened again when I thought about the situation we were in. I turned on the TV, to try and get distracted. Local news channel.

"…_when a man with silver hair attacked the security guards, and even managed to punch one, right through the stomach. Three were killed, and a fourth is now in the hospital with five broken ribs and a broken leg. Eye witnesses say he was gone in a flash, and disappeared from the crime scene."_

I gulped, pulling my legs up and throwing my arms around my knees as I watched a reporter interview the wife of one of the men that had died. She was sobbing, a wet tissue clenched in her right hand. She seemed absolutely devastated, and it made me feel sick and so horrible.

"_I don't know why an-anyone would do this! E-Eric was just… just doing his job…." _She nearly broke down crying and I quickly zapped away, before I started crying as well. I glanced at Hidan who was peacefully sleeping. I wasn't going to feel comfortable with him around. At least it seemed that Suzan had reached a new level of courage where she actually cussed at him now instead of just glare. The annoying thing was that he didn't even seem to mind it. I nearly jumped when the homicidal maniac suddenly opened his eyes and stared right at me, before he got up and walked to the hallway without a word. Kakuzu sighed knowingly, and I turned to look at him, confused, but he ignored me and continued reading.

Eventually I decided to call up Jack. I told him that I needed to go to the restaurant earlier today so I didn't have any time to spend with him. He was very understanding about the whole thing, and I felt really guilty for lying to him. It was just six PM, and I didn't have to be at the restaurant until ten. Pain would probably order someone to keep an eye on me, and Suzan would probably be lazy and stay in the house. But I decided to go early anyway. Get my mind off things.

I got up after five minutes of watching some sitcom, and walked off to the kitchen where Pain was hanging out, informing him I'd be leaving immediately. He ordered Tobi to keep an eye on me from the distance, and I scowled at this. Tobi was the last person I wanted to go with. But there was no arguing with Pain.

I was about to leave when I heard Suzan scream. It was coming from the bathroom.

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

"For Christ's sake!" I gawked at what I saw in front of me. Really? Of all the times he had to do his stupid ritual it had to be when I'd just wanted to go to the toilet! He rolled his eyes at me as he was lying on the (by now) bloodied floor. I got nauseous, and turned away quickly, seeing the large, black, spike thing sticking out his chest with that weird symbol on the ground and him lying on top of it.

"What? Just be glad I didn't do this in the living room!" he snapped, irritated I'd interrupted his… whatever kind of ritual you'd want to call it. Fact was, I never much cared for religion. To be frank with you, I thought most of it was a load of bull. Jashinism? Let's just say Hidan would probably torture me to death if I voiced my opinion about his religion openly. It wasn't like I gave a shit about what he did to himself or anything, considering it was _his _body and he was freaking immortal, but it was just disturbing to me.

Actually, the entire thing sounded like an excuse to be a complete psychopath. But, I would never say that to him. Mostly because I didn't want to get killed, but also because it really wasn't any of my business what he believed nor did I have the right to give him crap for it. Yeah, I'm tolerant like that. Aren't I just amazingly kind?

"Can't this wait?"

"No it can't fucking wait!"

"But I REALLY need to… you know!" I said, gesturing at the toilet.

"Well then, it sucks to be you, doesn't it?" he sneered. I glared at him, really starting to feel uncomfortable.

"How long will this crap take?"

"HEY! It's not crap you fucking heathen!" he yelled, seriously pissed. I was slightly taken aback by this, and decided I shouldn't have said that.

"Sorry. I just really need to take a piss and you're not making this easier." I apologized genuinely, though really frustrated, and he gave me a funny look. I frowned. "What?"

"Nothing." I gave up, and walked out. There I found Ella, who stared at me in concern but didn't say anything.

"Don't go in there. Bloody ritual going on." I advised her and she stared at me with wide eyes, nodding slowly. Ella almost had like a phobia for blood. She couldn't stand the sight of it, and usually passed out when she saw a lot of it. Eventually she told me that she was going to work early and had called off Jack. I felt sorry for her. I knew she'd really liked Jack. Then, she left together with Tobi (which made me feel even more sorry and worried for her)

Thirty minutes. Do you realize how HARD it was? It felt like my bladder was going to explode. The only neighbors I was really familiar with weren't home so I couldn't use their toilet. I went to the living room, and tried to pass time by talking to anyone who wanted to listen. I saw Kakuzu reading a biography of Freud and tried to engage in a conversation, but he just gave me annoyed looks and short answers, which told me he'd rather read the book than talk at the moment. Deidara was relaxing on the roof, so sadly enough he wasn't much of an option. He really was the most normal guy in the house at the moment, which was kind of pathetic if you thought about it.

Itachi wasn't a talker at all. He'd just give me this blank stare, so I quickly gave up on him as well. Pain was… well, Pain was Pain and let's leave it at that. I supposed I could go back in the bathroom and annoy Hidan but the consequences wouldn't be pretty for me once he was done with his ritual. So, I ended up just having a bold (and stupid) staring contest with Itachi (or at least I thought I was, I could've been under a genjutsu as well). Kakuzu eventually decided to ask me a question that should've been asked the moment I locked eyes with Itachi.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm having a staring contest."

"With a person who excels at genjutsu?"

"Yes."

"You're a moron."

"It's either doing that or wetting myself, considering your partner has occupied the bathroom for about twenty minutes now."

"I see your point."

When I heard a door open, and a loud sigh, I shot up, running towards the bathroom. Hidan was finally done with whatever. I forgot to ask him why he never got scars from all the crap he did to himself, because I basically ran in the bathroom. He tried to stop me, but it was too late.

"Oi, Suzan! Wait, the-"

I slipped and fell. What did I slip on, you ask? Hidan's. Fucking. Blood.

"MOTHERFUCKER!" I yelled out, staring in disgust at my arms and clothes now covered in the red liquid.

"I forgot to tell you that I hadn't cleaned it up yet." Hidan matter-of-factly stated.

"WELL NO SHIT!"

"Whoa, calm down, Sunshine." I glared up at him, and tried to get up but slipped again and fell back down on my ass. Of course, he burst out into laughter, but to me it was just sickening.

"Help me up, for fuck's sake!" I cried, and he grabbed me by my shirt, hoisting me up easily. "Aw, goddammit." I cursed, my hands soaked in blood. I tried to wipe my hair out of my face, but of course I then got blood on my cheek too. I noticed he was giving me a strange look again, but I ignored it once again, assuming it was because I looked ridiculous. "Why didn't you clean it up immediately?" I questioned him angrily. He shrugged.

"I just felt like eating first."

"Ugh, whatever." I sighed, carefully walking over to the sink while avoiding any blood, and washing my arm and face. Now I just needed to change my clothes and… I still needed to take a piss. "Get out, would you?"

"Why?"

"I need to… you know damn well why!" I growled, pointing at the toilet. Clearly he found this amusing.

"Oh? And what if I don't want to get out?" Was he seriously going to torture me like this?

"I… just… _please_?" He thought about it.

"No."

"GET OUT!"

"No."

"Come oooooon!"

"No."

I tried to push him out, but he wouldn't fucking move! I was pushing against his chest with all my strength but he didn't move an inch. I was getting desperate here, so I used _that _technique. I batted my eyelashes, pouting just slightly and trying to look as cute possible.

"Please?" I murmured. He thought about it, a little bit longer now as he stared at my face.

"Hmmm… tempting, but no."

"AARGH! FUCK YOU, MAN! GOD YOU'RE FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE!" As if he were a superhero ready to rescue a damsel in distress, Deidara walked in. Alright, maybe he wasn't _that_ heroic but at that moment he seemed to be, at least. First, he rolled his eyes when seeing the blood on the floor, then he stared at my infuriated state, and finally looked at Hidan.

"Stop being an asshole, yeah." he said dryly. Hidan glared at him.

"Mind your own business."

"Please don't mind your own business and get him out of my bathroom! I'm trying to take a piss and he won't let me!" I whined in a tortured voice. Deidara sighed, folding his arms as he shook his head at Hidan disappointedly.

"I knew you were a psycho, but I didn't think you'd be a pervert."

"A… I'm not a fucking pervert!"

"Then why don't you leave her alone, yeah?"

"Shut up, she-male!" He shot me a glare as well (as if I'd done something wrong) as he stalked off. I chuckled amused, before I smiled gratefully at Deidara.

"Thanks, man. I don't know what I ever did to make him hate me." Deidara leaned against the doorframe, thoughtfully.

"I don't think he hates you. Eh, he's a pretty straight-forward guy, yeah. If he really hated you, you'd be dead by now."

"Really, I'm beginning to think you're the only sane person here." He smirked widely at that.

"Sad thing is, I probably am." He walked out again and left me alone. I quickly locked the door behind him and stared at the dirty floor. I couldn't help it; I had to clean up the blood before I did my business. _Stupid rituals._

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

It was a rather busy evening. Orders kept coming and I was so focused on cooking I completely forgot everything around me. When I finally got a break and someone else filled in for me as I got out the backdoor of the restaurant, avoiding my parents who no doubt wanted to talk about Itachi. I sighed wearily. There was too much going on lately. I stood outside and leaned against the wall, staring up at the sky which was rather clouded that day. I could hear the faint sound of cars rushing by and people inside the restaurant talking merrily to each other while enjoying their food.

"ELLA-CHAN!" My heart nearly stopped when Tobi appeared out of nowhere, screaming in my ear.

"T-Tobi!" I had a hand on my chest and stared at him with wide eyes. "Please don't do that again," I requested once having calmed down again.

"Sorry, Ella-chan. Tobi was just getting so bored! And Tobi is hungry too!" I rubbed my temples, but tried to keep my cool. After all, he was probably doing it just to annoy me and get a rise out of me.

"I'll get you some food." I decided, walking in the restaurant and sneaking away a plate filled with a juicy steak, potatoes and some vegetables, handing it over to Tobi once I was outside again.

"Thank you, Ella-chan! You're so kind!" he cried as he immediately started eating. I watched him closely, but he simply turned his back on my and pulled his mask off like that. I huffed, disappointed and irritated, and I could hear him chuckle in his real voice. He handed me back the empty plate and I put it away, careful not to be spotted by anyone. Once outside again, Tobi decided to ask me a question out of the blue.

"What happened to Ella-chan's date?" he asked curiously.

"I… wasn't really feeling like going out after what happened this morning." I answered him honestly.

"Eeeeh? Are you still upset those people died?" He got out of character a bit when he referred to me as "you". I nodded reluctantly.

"It's just that, uh, people rarely get killed here in this town, at least. I'm not… used to it at all." He stayed silent for a while.

"Still so innocent, even at this age." I flinched when he spoke in his normal voice with his Sharingan flashing for a second, and was sure he got a kick out of scaring the life out of me with his sudden contemplations and eye. I didn't respond as I just nervously stared at my feet. This person was probably the most dangerous individual on the entire planet. _No big deal, _I told myself unconvincingly. "KITTY!" I shrieked when Tobi suddenly ran after a street cat, and started chasing it around.

"Oh lord," I sighed tiredly.

"Kitty! Here kitty cat! Tobi won't hurt you! Kitty, KITTY, KITTY! OW!" Tobi suddenly wailed. "Ella-chan! Kitty scratched me! Mean kitty! You're a bad boy!"

"I really, really wish we at least had one sane ninja here to even the insane ones out,_" _I muttered to myself, which was followed by a deep sigh. Tobi stopped his crying and stared at me. I blinked, and he shook his head.

"Ella-chan, that was a very stupid thing to say." he told me, as if he were scolding his daughter. I was puzzled now.

"W-wait, that… I didn't… does that count as a wish?"

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

"No, no, no, NO! FUCK! WHO MADE ANOTHER WISH?" I yelled through the household when I discovered a giant, gaping black hole in my ceiling. The other Akatsuki members quickly gathered in my room and stared up at it.

"That is the portal we've all fallen through," Itachi said, obviously recognizing it. Hidan scowled.

"You mean MORE people are coming through? Dammit, this stupid shithole is small enough as it is!"

"I agree, yeah. We need to move out, fast!"

"Who do you think will fall through this time?"

"So did someone make a wish or not?"

"I'll bet you ten it will be my man Sasori, yeah."

"I'll bet you twenty it will be Kisame, Deidara-chan!"

"You're on!"

"You're both idiots. It's obviously going to be Konan."

"Shut up if you're not gonna bet, Kakuzu!"

"I don't need to make a bet to know I'm right."

"You conceited motherf-"

All talking and arguing stopped when there was the sound shouting resounding through the room, coming from the portal. Two people fell down and landed on my bed.

Then my jaw dropped at seeing who had fallen through. One was Sasori, but the other one…. _No way!_

"THIS PERSON ISN'T A FUCKING AKATSUKI!"

"Hidan. Shut up."

* * *

><p><strong>CLIFFHANGER, BITCHES!<strong>

**Can you guess who it'll be?**

**Hint: they're sane. And not Akatsuki. Come on, this one is incredibly easy! You can leave your guess in the review. The first one to guess right wins! **

**Eh… as a reward… you'll get an honorable mention in the next chapter, and bragging rights so you can tell other people how stupid they are for guessing wrong or not being fast enough ^_^**

**FEED MEH REVIEWZ! :D**


	6. Evil little sisters

**SO MANY REVIEWS! I LOVE YOU GUYS! :D**

**MWAHAHA! MOST OF YOU GOT IT WRONG! **

_**yyh-ygo-fma**_** was the first one to guess it right, so she (I'm assuming you're a she, forgive my stupid face if I'm wrong) has won the right to brag about her awesomeness. **

**ANYWAY. ENJOY THIS NEXT CHAPTER.**

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

You know, I could curse and scream and swear all I wanted, but at the end of the day, I couldn't find a word that would properly express the intense feeling of rage that overwhelmed me at the moment. Of course, when Ella came running home and saw the two men blankly sitting on my bed, surrounded by the Akatsuki and two unfamiliar girls, she smiled apologetically at me, scratching the back of her head as if she'd dropped a plate instead of teleported more people AND wasted our second wish. I'd TRIED to wish them back, but nothing happened. I could only assume that Ella's first wish was still busy so we'd have to wait until every single Akatsuki member was here. Great.

"Sasori, my man! Hey, you're still alive, yeah!" Deidara exclaimed happily. The other just stared at him. He was in his real form, though, which made me wonder when he'd been plucked out of the timeline. But, I had no chance to really think of that when Hidan suddenly grabbed his scythe and tried to kill the other person that had fallen down. Then, Deidara looked at the other person who'd fallen down, and his expression suddenly changed.

"YOU! You cost me my fucking arm! I'll kill you!" he yelled, but Ella got between them and tried to calm him down.

"Hidan!" I yelled in the meantime, not feeling like A) having blood all over my bed and B) having a good guy killed. His scythe, just inches away from Kakashi's head, stopped abruptly, and he stared at me, annoyed.

"What?"

"Don't kill him!"

"Why the hell not?"

"Because you already fucking killed three other people today!"

"You're still pissed at me for that?"

"OF COURSE I'M PISSED!" Ella coughed, interrupting our argument.

"Uhm… we're kind of cramped in here. It would be better if you guys and Sasori got out and let me and Suzan handle this." she suggested, nearly being squished between me and Deidara. Eventually, with a nod from Pain, they left the room, and I sighed relieved. Sasori would be filled in by Pain, no doubt, so it was up to us to have a talk with Kakashi. Who seemed rather dumbstruck, by the way. He blinked, obviously trying to figure out whether this was real or not.

"What… just happened?" he asked slowly. I looked at Ella with a glare.

"You tell him, considering it's YOUR fault he's here." I snapped, sitting down on my bureau chair. I listened and observed Kakashi's reactions as Ella told him basically everything. He kept staring at her, still shocked and flustered by the whole ordeal. After a long while, when she was finally done explaining everything, there was a silence. Then a deep sigh from his part as he was sitting on the bed and hanging his head.

"You've got to be kidding me." Ella slowly shook her head. "This is probably the worst situation I've ever been in."

"Sorry. I really didn't mean to wish you here. I just kind of, ehm, blurted it out." she muttered, getting those remorseful, big, blue puppy eyes so far no man had been able to resist. I rolled my eyes at the display as I, as a straight woman, was completely immune to them.

"It's… alright. It was just an accident. Though I'd appreciate it if you got me back to… er, my world as soon as possible." I could tell from his scowl that he still had a little trouble accepting he was technically a fictional character, but he didn't say anything else about it. Ella looked at me.

"Suze," she whined, and I knew she was going to make me do something really troublesome "could you call that real estate agent up again? We really need to move out this week." I rubbed my forehead but agreed.

"You'll have to keep Hidan and Deidara away from him, though. I wouldn't put it above them to start working together just to kill Kakashi." Ella nodded once, and I decided to talk to Pain first about what just happened. I walked to the living room to find Deidara cheerfully chatting with Sasori who seemed rather indifferent. A few others were sitting on the couch (Hidan naturally trying to kill Kakuzu with his endless talking), but Pain wasn't among them. I walked to the kitchen and found him and Itachi there. The latter who was eating an apple. I ignored him and looked at Pain.

"What is it?" he asked coolly.

"I just need to make sure none of your subordinates decide to kill our new guest." I responded. He raised his eyebrows.

"Oh? Why should I care about an enemy, girl?"

Now that was a good question. I really didn't have an answer for that.

"I'd really appreciate it." I said, and decided to use my awesome persuasive skills. As a psychologist to be, it was a must after all. "And you know how sensitive Ella is. I don't think she'd be able to cook for a while, which means you'll have to eat terrible food for the next few weeks, maybe even be at risk of food poisoning. Besides, what good will it do to kill him? It's not like he's a threat of any sort. You all outnumber him and he isn't nearly stupid enough to attack you. It would just be a waste of energy."

Pain stayed silent as he considered it for a few seconds, and eventually nodded with a slight, faint smile on his face.

"I'll humor you." he decided, and stood up. I think the part where I said they were at risk of food poisoning really did the trick. He walked to the living room, where most members were and immediately got their attention just by walking in. "No one is to kill Kakashi Hatake."

"Why the fuck not?" Hidan complained.

"I agree for once, yeah! Why not?" Pain glared at both Deidara and Hidan.

"I owe you no explanation. It is an order, and you are to follow orders. That is all." There were no further protests, and I was truly amazed, though it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise, considering Pain could easily own any of them in under a minute. After that was handled (I ignored glares from Hidan and Deidara, since they were just smart enough to figure out who convinced Pain) I decided to call my real estate agent friend, Joseph. It was a little late, but knowing him he probably was still up, working. Sure enough, he picked up. Of course I had it on loudspeaker, after receiving a telling look from Pain.

"_Suzan!" _he said surprised. _"Something wrong?"_

"No, just wondering if you found a house already." He sighed wearily.

"_Really, Suze? You gave me just half a day to find you the perfect house?"_

"Forget that talk about the perfect house, Jo, what's the largest place available near me?" There was a silence on the other end. "You know money isn't an issue anymore, so I'll take anything."

"_What's with this eagerness, all of a sudden? Is your current house really that bad?"_

"Yes!" I immediately answered, trying my best to ignore all the other people in the living room listening in on my conversation.

"_Fine. I actually do know a large villa just a few miles away from where you are now, but…." _

"But what, Jo?"

"_Well, I couldn't find any buyers for it. The house itself is in a perfect state, but the family who lived there… listen, the father of that family killed his three children and commit suicide. The wife went crazy and had to be locked up in an asylum. Ever since her relatives asked me to get rid of it for them, but I know you probably won't-"_

"I'll take it. When can we move out?" I interrupted him bluntly. There was another silence.

"_Seriously? There are stories going around that it's haunted, I mean, it constantly gets broken into, and before that crazy family moved in, there was a couple who got killed in their sleep by a burglar and before _that _an old doctor who kidnapped kids and sold their organs."_

"Joseph, you should know by now I don't buy into superstitious bullshit like that. Burglars won't be problem at all, _trust _me. Do they accept cash?" Besides, it seemed fitting that a house with an history like that would wind up providing for a bunch of lethal criminals. I pitied any burglar who was unlucky enough to break in with the Akatsuki around. Actually, I doubted he or she would even make it to the house.

"_That... well, yes, they do. Wow, Suze. You're a life-saver! I thought I was going to be stuck with it forever!" _He laughed relieved. _"You can move out as soon as tomorrow. The current owners are itching to sell it." _

"Good," I felt like laughing with him "I'll go meet them tomorrow, then. Thanks, Jo, I really appreciate it."

"_Don't be silly, I should be thanking you. I'll fax you the address and some pictures right now."_

"Alright. I'll talk to you later." I hung up and let out a huge sigh of relief. Now I had one less problem to deal with.

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

I decided to keep Kakashi out of sight, mostly because I really didn't want him killed. When Suzan came in and told us the good news, I was so relieved I nearly collapsed on her bed. The stress these people gave me had been building up for a time now, but now at least we wouldn't be breathing in each other's necks. I decided to stay up for the night, as I wouldn't be able to sleep anyway. A few other people decided to stay up as well. Pain gave the inconspicuous members or people who knew how to disappear quickly when spotted, like Itachi, Tobi and Sasori, permission to look around town. Hidan and Deidara wouldn't be going outside in a long time. At least, not without a disguise.

In all the commotion I'd completely forgotten about Eva, who then decided to call me up when I'd been sitting on the couch, feeling a little uneasy as I was right between Kakuzu and Hidan. Hidan, who seemed to have a knack for pissing Kakuzu specifically off, wouldn't leave him alone much. Sasori was sitting on the armchair and Deidara was in the kitchen with Pain, though he came out again with a bag of chips in his hand. Suzan was in her room, proudly showing off her large book-collection to Kakashi (who'd seemed impressed the last time I checked up on them). At least I knew they would get along fine.

"One of these days I _will _kill you." Kakuzu huffed, really getting angry. I leaned so far back in the couch I thought I was going to disappear in it, trying not to get in between them. Kakuzu was incredibly scary when he glared like he was doing then.

"Ha, come on! We both know that's impossible!" Hidan bragged about his immortality. You can imagine how relieved I was when my phone went off and I quickly picked it up. Kakuzu glared, which probably meant he wanted me to put it on loudspeaker, which I did.

"_Hello?" _I heard Eva ask uncertainly.

"Eva! Hi, it's El." I said cheerfully.

"_Ella! What's up? I haven't seen you in ages!" _she said excitedly. I was at the same time forced to move so I was VERY uncomfortably pressed against Kakuzu when Deidara demanded to sit.

"I'm fine, just fine. Hey, don't tell Wyatt that I know, but you're coming over in a few weeks, right?" There was a silence, then a disappointed "aw" from Eva.

"_Dammit, did Suze ruin it? That's so like her." _I laughed awkwardly as I was trying to get comfortable which was practically impossible. _"Anyway, I wanted to tell you something."_

"Hmm? Go ahead."

"_Remember last winter when you came over to our place? Well, you forgot your manga here. I've been reading it, and read the rest online. It's pretty cool!" _I froze, and the others seemed to as well. Hell, Hidan even stopped pulling Deidara's hair.

"Eva, what was the title?"

"_Oh, uhm… Naruto Shippuuden. It was confusing at first, 'cause it was the second part, but I read up on everything online, you know?"_

"So you… know basically everything."

"_Yup!"_

"You're completely up to date?"

"_Yeah… why?" _I took a deep breath. Now she REALLY couldn't come over.

"Oh, nothing. I was just… er, surprised. You didn't seem like the type to like manga. Hey, uhm… Eva? Do you… I mean, do you _have_ to come over?" I asked gently. There was another silence.

"_What? You don't want me to come over?" _she sounded hurt. I bit my lip, feeling incredibly guilty.

"W-well, that's… that's not it-" I glanced at Pain, who'd now once again entered the room and listened as well.

"_Then what's the freaking problem? I haven't seen you in like, a whole year!" _

"It's just that we're in the middle of moving out and stuff, and it's… it's a… well… bad time."

"_Is this because of that firework incident? Because I didn't mean to blow up that car. Honestly!" _My eye twitched thinking back at it. It had been the fourth of July, and apparently Eva had gone out and "accidentally" blown up the car of her math teacher. Wyatt had given her an earful already. They never had discovered it was her, though. In any case, when I'd heard from it over the phone from Wyatt, and then got to speak to Eva, I'd yelled at her like I'd never yelled before.

"No, that's entirely irrelevant!" I said in a harsher tone that usual, because I was still angry at her for doing that. "It's just that I lately I've been really busy, and, and I didn't… well, it's…." I didn't really know how to say it.

"_But… Ella, I really miss you…." _she said in that miserable, soft tone that I just couldn't bear. _"I was really looking forward to it. Last time we were together for my birthday was three years ago… I just thought you'd missed me too, but I guess not."_

"What? Don't be ridiculous, I miss you a lot as well, you're my little sister, but-"

"_So I can come?" _Suddenly my phone got snatched away.

"NO, you CAN'T come!"

"Hidan, you imbecile!"

"What? It was taking too fucking long, alright!"

"_Hello? What the… who are you?" _Eva said, sounding alarmed. I took the phone back, and gulped. _"Ella! Oh my god, THAT'S why you didn't want me to come! You're having guys over!" _She sounded astounded, and then started laughing. _"Oh man, if mom hears about this-"_

"EVA! Please don't tell her!" I cried desperately. Eva laughed maliciously.

"_I won't tell if you let me come over." _That little devil! I looked helplessly at Pain, covering my phone so she wouldn't hear anything else, who looked rather irritated.

"Let her come over, then. We can handle one teenage girl." he stated, and I nodded slowly. I really hadn't wanted Eva to get involved, but that girl wasn't leaving me with any other choice.

"Fine, Eva. But PROMISE you won't tell anyone about this!"

"_Cross my heart! Hey, I think I'll come over this week."_

"This week? Why?"

"_Well, I'm bored over here, and I wanna meet whoever it is you're fu-"_

"Eva!" I scolded her, my head turning a thousand shades of red.

"_Ah, sorry! Blame Suzan for teaching me those words. Anyways, I gotta go. I'll see you in a few days, sis! Bye, love you!" _She hung up and I was feeling really, really light-headed. There was just too much stress on my right now and it felt like my head was going to explode any minute.

"Ella? You feeling okay, yeah?" Deidara asked, staring at my face which looked completely worn out, no doubt.

"I just need something to drink." I muttered, getting up and walking to the kitchen.

Time for some alcohol.

* * *

><p><strong>Kakuzu<strong>

It was only a matter of time before one of those imbeciles decided to go against Pain's orders to not kill the Copy Cat Ninja. The Konoha jounin mostly (and wisely enough) decided to stay away from us and go sit on the roof. At the same time, Suzan was looking at the pictures of the villa with wide eyes. I'd already taken a look at them, and the house itself seemed more than big enough for all of us. It was just outside of town, however it had seven bedrooms, four bathrooms, a swimming pool in the large backyard, a very large living room and spacious kitchen, with a "garage", whatever that was. We had enough money to buy it, and if ever in need of money we could easily steal some more know Tobi had memorized the vault location of the bank.

Of course we weren't going to rob the same bank over and over. One of those girls could take us to other banks in other cities. All in all, getting money wasn't much of an issue.

I suddenly heard a loud bang coming from the roof, and scowled as I watched Suzan run outside. Eventually, I followed her, mostly because I there was nothing else interesting in the house. I didn't care for the ridiculous shows airing on the television. Besides that, a weak human girl couldn't possibly separate experienced and dangerous ninjas in the middle of combat.

Soon enough, I saw the jounin trying to dodge both Hidan's scythe and Deidara's bombs at the same time. Suzan was fuming, but all she could do was yell at them.

"Stop it! What if the neighbors see you, you idiots!" she shouted, panicked, and I was inclined to agree.

"DIE!" Hidan yelled, cackling while he chased after him. I watched as Deidara made more bombs and threw them at him. So far, Kakashi was doing a good job at dodging them, but he wouldn't be able to keep it up.

"Hidan, Deidara, get down from there." I grumbled, getting really frustrated with their idiocy and recklessness.

"Come on, Kakuzu! He's a fucking enemy, right? Besides, don't you want to get a little payback?"

"You're going to blow your cover if you keep this up!" Suzan told him off, nervously looking around. It was 3 AM, so there weren't any people outside but if they kept creating ruckus I could see it changing soon enough. Then, Ella walked out with a bottle of wine in her hand. Stared up at them, but instead of freaking out like Suzan, she simply drank some more from the bottle.

"Who cares? I'll just kill the people who saw us, problem solved!" talking with us had distracted him enough for the Konoha jounin to kick him in his face and send him flying back."Oh you're gonna fucking PAY for that!" he growled.

"Are you going to disobey Pain's orders?" When I saw they weren't going to give up and ignored me, I raised my hands, and used my threads. I wrapped them around both of their arms, legs and torso's so they were incapacitated.

"Dammit, Kakuzu! I was so close to getting him, yeah!" Deidara yelled, trying to wriggle his way out. At the same time Kakashi quickly jumped down from the roof, though he maintained his distance from me. He seemed relieved it was over, though.

"LET ME GO, BASTARD!" Hidan continued to yell profanities at me, and I threw him to the ground, though still keeping him bound. I put Deidara down in a less violent fashion. "Hey! You're… nearly fucking… choking me here!"

"Stop complaining. You can't die anyway." I huffed, tightening my grip around his neck while slowly releasing Deidara who seemed to have learned his lesson. I glared at my partner. I was going to enjoy this, at least.

"Damn… you… asshole!" Hidan managed to get out in between being strangled.

"Uhm, Kakuzu, is that really necessary?" Suzan asked hesitantly, not seeming to enjoy it at all, in fact she seemed rather disturbed by it, which surprised me. Hidan had been annoying her the most, almost as much as me.

"If he doesn't stop screaming, it is." I answered sternly. She frowned slightly, looking at Hidan who was still painfully choking.

"You heard him! If you promise not to scream at him again he'll let you go." The Jashinist seemed to debate in his mind whether it was worth it, but his seemed his lungs persuaded him and he nodded. I released him again, and he shot me a glare.

"Fucking asshole." he muttered, but I ignored him. I looked at Suzan, who seemed rather depressed. She looked over to Ella, grabbed her bottle and drank it all up in one go.

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

"Yaaaaay! Piggyback ride!"

I stared at Suzan. A positively drunk Suzan, getting a piggyback ride from Tobi as he was running around the living room. Maybe I shouldn't have let her drink my bottle.

"Wheeeeeee!" he yelled in joy.

_What the heck?_ Deidara joined me in gaping at them. Suzan hit her head against the lamp several times, but she didn't even seem to feel it. Suzan was a happy, childish drunk. No matter what you told her while she was intoxicated, she'd laugh. Even if you told her that her mother had stage four stomach cancer, she'd probably just giggle and stumble around the room some more. Though, sometimes, when she got drunk to the point where she could barely walk, she got kind of horny. Luckily I'd managed to snatch all the wine away from her before it got to that point.

Tobi then dropped her, right into Sasori's lap, who glared at her and roughly shoved her off.

"Owie!" Suzan whined, landing on her butt. "You big meanie!" she stuck out her tongue at him, then started giggling uncontrollably on the floor.

"Suze, I think it's time to go to sleep." I told her, but she didn't listen to me. She stood up, then stared at Hidan's hair for a while before she burst out into laughter. He glared at her.

"The hell are you laughing at?"

"What… how old are you… like… like eighty? Oh my god… your hair is all like… grey and shit!" She chuckled, hiccupping a few times.

"IT'S SILVER, NOT GREY!"

"So… what, you're a wizard? 'Cause only wizards have like… silver hair, right? Like… like Dumb… Dumbdo… Dumblething. Whatever. That guy from Harry Potter. OH MY GOD." she suddenly exclaimed, getting glares from Kakuzu and Sasori. "YOU'RE A VAMPIRE!"

"Are you fucking serious?" Suzan nodded heavily.

"It like, all makes sense, dude. It's like… you drink blood, right? And, AND, you're totally immortal. Plus, you're like TOTALLY rocking that Dracula look… you know, with that hair, all slicked back and shit?"

"I don't just randomly drink blood, dammit! It's to-"

"Yeah, whatever. OH MY GOD, SHINY!" She exclaimed, pointing at his amulet. She tried grabbing it, but Hidan glowered at her and kept it out her reach.

"Hey, don't fucking touch it!" he snapped. Suzan cried about it for about five seconds, then stumbled onwards to annoy Deidara about how girly his hair was.

I swear this girl was going to get herself killed before sunrise.

* * *

><p><strong>YAY FOR ALCOHOL!<strong>

**Oh, don't worry. Kakashi won't be the only good guy in this story, since that would be kinda cruel of me. Actually, your reviews gave me some pretty good ideas. Hehehe :3**

**Anyway, next chapter, LOL MOAR DRUNK SUZAN. And moar Kakashi. Oh, and they're moving out. FINALLY. **

**Oops. I forgot to thank the reviewers last chapter. SORRY FOR THAT GUYS.**

**BIG THANKS TO **_**Broken Names, The Ultimate Baka, NAILxPOLISH, Lily-chan, Happy Crying, bookiehere, Bree-chan, Dust, hockeygal87, da-bomb, Hanoone, Akatsuki's Bitch, whatsername810, yyh-ygo-fma, Mahri, Dust Bunnies Anonymous, Deidara's Dragon **_**and **_**Crimson Trickster**_** for taking the time to review! I really appreciate it guys!**

**FEED MEH REVIEWZ :D**


	7. Call it what you want

**GAWD. It's done. FINALLY.**

**Here it is, then. I hope you like it, because I put a**_** lot**_** of effort into this one (for some reason). **

**ENJOY! :D**

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

"_CALL IT WHAT YOU WANT_!"

"Someone shut her up before I do it."

"_YEAH, YEAH, CALL IT WHAT YOU WANT_!"

"Suzan, our guests don't really appreciate your singing, much. Could you tone it down? _Please_? Before you get killed, I mean? NOW?"

"_OOOOOOH, WE GOT NOTHING TO LOSE_!"

"I can name several things you have to lose if you keep that up, girl."

"_YOU CAN JUST CALL IT WHAT YOU WANT_!"

"THAT'S IT! Give me the fucking duct tape!"

"Aw, but Tobi liked Suzan-chan's singing!"

"Shut the fuck up."

I panicked a little when Suzan was suddenly tackled to the ground by Hidan. To be fair, Suzan was good at many things, but singing was most certainly _not _one of them. Especially when she was drunk. Luckily he only taped her hands together behind her back and her mouth. Now she could only hum which was a lot better than the horrible noise that had been coming out of her a few seconds ago. I wasn't sure I could even call it singing, to be honest. I watched her squirm and roll around the floor, trying to get free from the tape, though it was futile. I sighed, helping her get up on her feet again. She started stumbling around until she landed on the couch right next to Kakuzu, who gave her an annoyed glare before continuing to read his book.

"I should probably start packing," I decided, not really talking to anyone in particular as I walked out, to our small garage, and found a few empty boxes there I could use. Considering the amount of money we'd… _collected, _we could pretty much get rid of all our furniture. Our couch was ragged, desperately needed replacing, the kitchen appliances got dirty way too fast, the TV had a habit of suddenly blacking out every now and then, most of our chairs were wobbly and our table didn't look very pretty either. The beds were rather uncomfortable and small as well. So, I only started packing clothes, toothbrushes, shampoo, CDs, you know, the small things. After a good hour of packing everything I could find in my room and the bathroom, I moved on to Suzan's room where I found Kakashi reading one of her books. He glanced up at me.

"Packing already? Shouldn't you be sleeping?" he asked, looking back at his book and continuing to read. It was 5 AM by now. I opened Suzan's wardrobe, which mostly consisted of jeans, shirts and jackets and a few dresses. I started with the jeans.

"I doubt I would be able to sleep even if I tried to." I muttered absently, trying not to mess up Suzan's entire wardrobe even more. Had she never heard of something called "folding your clothes"? The entire closet was in complete chaos.

"You're lucky you're still alive." I looked at him for a few seconds, before I responded, rather jadedly I might add.

"The only reason I still am is because I'm a really good cook."

"I see. So, what's the new house like? Bigger than this place, I'd hope?" I nodded, folding the last pair of jeans and placing them in the cardboard box. Now on to the dresses.

"From what I saw it's _huge. _Right outside of town, and it's gonna cost us about half of all the money we have."

"Oh? Where did you get that kind of money? If I look at the current house we're in, I think it's fair to conclude you aren't that rich." I winced, thinking back at what we'd done that morning.

"The guys… er, they thought robbing a bank would be the quickest and easiest way. I wasn't exactly in the position to argue."

"Right. I also heard one of them killed three people already?" His voice was nonchalant, but I could tell he was bothered by it. I suddenly felt very tense myself, thinking back, and I couldn't bring myself to respond as I grabbed a new box to put the jackets and shirts in. "So it's true."

"Unfortunately," I murmured. "I don't know exactly what happened, you'll have to ask Suzan that. I wasn't there at the time."

"I don't think she'd be able to give me a coherent answer in her present state, though."

"You'll have to forgive her for that. She really can't hold her liquor."

"You can?" he said sardonically, and I scowled at him.

"Of course. I drank a lot more than her but I only feel a little light-headed at most." I huffed, feeling almost insulted. Almost. I had yet to be defeated at a drinking game.

"Huh. You don't _look_ like the alcoholic type at all." Okay, now I was insulted.

"Excuse me, but I'm _not_ an alcoholic." I wasn't addicted, at least! Kakashi raised his one visible eyebrow.

"So you only drink every now and then? When you're under too much stress?" The tone in which he said it really implied I was weak, even if the question itself was innocent. I started to get really irritated.

"I can handle stress perfectly fine! I just _choose _not to." I _almost_ snapped at him.

"Forgive me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the fact that you choose not to imply you don't want to handle it, because you _can't_?" he scoffed, and I glared at him.

"You're being rude." I really snapped at him this time, and tried to remember why I'd liked his character in the first place, when he'd just been a fictional character instead of real. Oh, right. Because he'd been sarcastic towards _other _people.

"Oh, well, I apologize. I didn't know that stating the truth would insult you like this." He returned to reading his book. I felt a vein popping up at the side of my head, but decided to let it go and continue folding. I frowned even deeper when I thought about it, though. I was fairly certain this sarcastic side had been much more dominant during Part I than Part II. After folding up another shirt of Suzan's, I turned to face him again.

"Could you tell me what you were doing when you got… teleported here?" I asked. He glanced up at me, then seemed to contemplate for a while before he answered.

"I was tracking down Sakura to stop her from trying to kill Sasuke." Kakashi answered eventually. "Why?" My turn to make a snide remark. I didn't mean to, by the way. I just blurted it out. It was probably because of the wine and the still ever present stress.

"Because I don't remember you being such a complete _jerk _during that time." I blinked, realizing what I'd said. He seemed slightly surprised as well. "S-sorry! I didn't mean to… ehm…. I didn't mean it like that." I stammered, trying to apologize. Though the remark itself hadn't been that insulting compared to the insults Suzan could come up with, it was still unlike me to call another names. He simply chuckled at me, and I frowned. Here I was trying to apologize and he laughed at me! He actually _was _a jerk!

"ELLA!" I heard Deidara screech. Alarmed, I dropped the shirt I'd been holding and walked to the living room, expecting to see a bloody murder having taken place to make a suicidal bomber cry like a little girl. Instead I found something else entirely.

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

"But… but please?" I cried. Deidara glared down at me, as I'd been begging to get a piggyback ride from him. When he'd refused, I'd glomped his leg and now refused to let go until he consented. In his desperation, he'd called for Ella, who was now staring down at me with a scowl. Me, in my drunken state, didn't notice this and kept whining. Tobi had gone out again, as had Itachi and Sasori. Pain was in the kitchen as usual, Kakuzu was glaring at me for making such a ruckus and Hidan had decided to take a quick nap in Ella's room, considering Kakashi was in mine.

"Let go of me, woman!" he yelled, trying to shake me off. I didn't relent, however. Instead I now completely wrapped my arms around his entire right leg. "Goddammit! Ella! Get her off me!" he yelled. Ella approached me and kneeled down.

"Suze?" she asked, and I stared up at her like a little kid. "Time to go to sleep now, okay? You've played enough." I pouted, and shook my head fervently, burying my face in Deidara's upper right leg, making him shriek, and try to push my head down as I was no doubt a little too close to his man-parts. Of course I didn't realize it.

"Don't wanna go!" I cried, glancing at her. Ella sighed.

"Deidara, why don't you try carrying her to my room?" she said. Both of them were completely oblivious to the fact Dracula was sleeping in her room and I squirmed.

"Don't wanna!" I blurted out loudly and was about to go on a drunk tirade, when I saw Kakuzu glare intensely at me.

"Girl. Shut up." That was really all it took for me to keep my mouth shut. I still refused to let go of Deidara's leg, until he pulled me up, over his shoulder and proceeded to carry me around like that.

"You're a lot more trouble than you're worth when you're drunk, yeah." I heard him mutter, and giggled, playing with his hair. Which he obviously didn't like because he roughly dropped me into Ella's room and closed the door leaving me in the pitch dark. I frowned. Yes, I was drunk, but I wasn't stupid. I knew how to open a door. Though, a sudden, loud snoring distracted me as easily as candy distracted a little kid. My eyes adjusted somewhat to the darkness and I saw a figure sleeping on the bed. I curiously approached him (though more like a crawled over on my hands and knees).

Then I tried to find the little lamp Ella had on her desk and flipped the switch to turn it on. I saw Hidan sleeping with his mouth open, grunting a little every now and then but I couldn't understand his mumbling. I got up from the floor, walked (actually stumbled) over to him and seeing him sleep made me sleepy as well.

"Hey… Dracula, move." I muttered, trying to push him to make room for me. Now before you make any nasty comments (and I know you will because you're ASSHOLES) I was drunk, I was sleepy, and I sure as hell wasn't going to sleep on the floor. Besides, I was too drunk to give a damn that there was a criminal in the bed. He grunted some more, but didn't respond otherwise. Eventually I managed to push him away just enough for me to crawl into bed with him. First of all, the bed was really small so I was basically pressed against him. Second of all, I never knew he was a _hugger. _You know those weird people who hug everything when they're asleep?

At the time, all I thought was: _Oh my god, he's like a teddy bear! Teddy bear… bear… grizzly… fuzzy… grubby… dirty… hobo? OH MY GOD HE'S A HOBO! _See? I was completely unable to think clearly at the time. So I didn't really realize what was going on. I was way too busy playing word association in my head.

All I know is that I woke up the next morning, still snuggling against a psychotic criminal who was sleeping soundly with an arm around my waist. The blanket was covering half of my body, the light was still on, I had a hangover and Ella was in the room, staring at us. I blinked slowly, rubbing my eyes out, and when I turned my head to the left I saw Hidan. Then I got a heart-attack.

"Oh _shit." _I don't know what happened to my body, but it felt like someone had just injected me with pure adrenaline. My eyes widened, my heart started pounding, the room suddenly felt a lot hotter than it actually was and I felt dizzy. Not to mention the hangover I had from last night. I saw Hidan's eyes flutter open. He yawned first, stared at me, rubbed his eyes out and stared at me blankly some more. After almost a whole minute of staring he finally realized he had his arm around me and-

"HOLY FUCK! HOW THE FUCK DID YOU GET IN MY BED?" he screamed, jumping up and stumbling out of the bed. "We… did we do anything last night?"

"Suzan!" Ella exclaimed, outraged as she'd obviously gotten the wrong idea. "In _my_ bed? With HIM?"

"I-it wasn't like that!" I whimpered, feeling my headache getting worse. I felt dizzy, embarrassed, hot, nauseous and uncomfortable. "Listen, I really… need an aspirin or something," I sighed tiredly.

"Fine. Just tell me you had protected s-"

"Ella! I didn't have sex, for fuck's sake!" I tried to convince her as Hidan was basically freaking out. Ella folded her arms, staring at me sternly as if she were my mother or something. I rolled my eyes, and eventually managed to persuade her to get the aspirin, and lied back down in the bed. Hidan was still staring at me, which was getting annoying, plus I really didn't want to look at him and reveal my blush. The general feeling I had was embarrassment, but I also felt like I was a high school girl again. Nervous, fidgety and highly self-conscious. It was annoying. I was naturally a confident person. To be insecure was a completely unfamiliar territory to me.

"So we didn't do anything last night, right?"

"Shut up!" I snapped, my blush getting redder. I didn't notice Hidan smirking mischievously when he spotted it, and thought I was safe as I shifted carefully on the bed, trying not to hurt my head more than it already was hurting. And man did it hurt like a bitch! I put my hand on my eyes, being irritated by the light, but peeked at the Jashinist between my fingers. His face, I noticed, was dangerously close. I removed my hand and glared at him, the blush still ever present on my face.

"Do you mind backing off?" I requested not-so-politely. He then said something I never expected to come out of his mouth.

"You look cute when you're blushing." I gawked at him, letting the words sink in and then hiding my face under the blanket.

"Go away!" I yelled at him, feeling humiliated. Fact was, I couldn't handle any sort of compliments, flirting or flattery. Really, I'd only had two boyfriends. Both of them were complete heart-breakers and had thought I'd been a challenge, considering I always shied away from their advances (or anyone else's advances, for that matter). This is where me an Ella were complete opposites. I, on the one hand, had no idea how to deal with love. My past boyfriends had just kind of… talked me into dating them. And even when I'd seen them flirting with other girls I'd just shrugged and let it go. I had yet to actually fall in love with someone.

Ella on the other hand, though seemingly to be a saint and all naïve and gullible, was the most romantic person I'd ever seen. In a relationship she was so passionate, tender, protective and got jealous rather easily. When single, she was seductive and loved to tease. Believe me, I witnessed it and it was weird as hell.

"Haha! I knew it! You are SO a fucking virgin!"

"Am not!"

"Then why do you squeal like a little girl at a basic compliment?"

"I'm just… an introverted person, alright!"

"Introverted my _ass._" I peeked from my blanket over to him and saw him grinning like an idiot. "Just admit it already."

"Oh? And how many girls have you dated, huh?" I sat up straight, glaring at him. He rolled his eyes.

"I don't do dating. It's a waste of fuckin' time." he stated with an attitude of holier-than-thou. _Pompous ass. _

"Ah, I get it. Jashin doesn't approve of girlfriends, is that it?"

"Shut up."

"Ooooh, touchy subject?"

"Hey, I can fuck whoever and whenever I want to!" I stared at him for a few seconds, letting those words sink in.

"So… you're a rapist?" His jaw nearly dropped at this, and I laughed my ass off. But I think he realized that his words had sounded off because he kind of stammered as he tried to snap at me.

"I'm not a fucking rapist, you bitch! I didn't mean it like that, for fuck's sake!" I kept laughing and he (probably really pissed by this point) pulled me up by my shirt, and I was thinking, _Fuck, I'm screwed, goodbye life, Hidan is going to sacrifice me to Jashin, _when Deidara marched in. Once again, saving me from a sticky situation.

"Oi, you finally awake? You look awful, yeah." he stated, as he looked me over, completely ignoring Hidan was almost strangling me. "In any case, we're moving out. Just thought I should let you know, yeah."

"What, already?" I groaned as I tried to get free from the crazy psycho's grasp. He nodded.

"Have you looked at the time? It's almost evening. Ella went over to the owners of the house and took care of everything." This time, he didn't say anything to Hidan and just walked off again.

"Hello? You're supposed to save me from being killed?" I called after him, but only got a chuckle in response. "THANKS A LOT BLONDIE!"

"Huh. So, where were we?" Hidan asked, as I still tried to free myself.

"Uhm… the part where you forgive me and let me go?" I tried hesitantly. He scowled.

"Not buying it."

"Damn. But you can't kill me, your leader said you couldn't!"

"You think I give a shit about what that asshole says?" He said with a dangerous glint in his eyes. All the fun disappeared when I saw that. I tried to get free and yelling for help, but he put his hand on my mouth and I was silenced. He was serious about this, wasn't he? I started panicking. What if he was genuinely going to murder me? I was now trying to kick him with my legs but he wouldn't relent. The panic in my chest now exploded and my heart started racing when I saw him reaching for his scythe. Shit. SHIT! He was serious! I tried to break free, but when that failed I managed to grab the lamp from Ella's desk and smashed it on his head.

"Ow!" he hissed, but I was pretty sure it had only annoyed him. Still, he was smirking widely, clearly enjoying this. My back was pressed against his chest and I could feel his hot breath on my neck. _Fuck, fuck, fuck, I'm finished, I'm dead, he's gonna kill me, shit, shit, shit- _Then he reached for his scythe and I knew I was screwed. I felt the cold metal cutting the skin on my neck, and warm blood trickle down to my chest, staining my shirt with blood. I squirmed when I felt a hot tongue going over my neck and licking up the blood. _FUCK! _I couldn't move or I would get cut even deeper. It hurt and it stung like a _bitch, _but it was nothing compared to what he still could do with me.

For a second, the first blade of the scythe cut even deeper, and I was sure this was it. It was going to hit a major artery and soon I was going to choke on my own blood.

Suddenly I was released. I let myself fall to the ground.

"Psych." Hidan stated with a wide grin. I gazed up at him, and I couldn't think anything else but-

"You… fucking… asshole." I whispered, still in shock from what had just happened. He was howling with laughter for the next few minutes, but when he finally calmed down he kind of gave me a half-assed explanation.

"Well, I didn't want to you to get too bold so I needed to tone you down a bit, ya know? You were getting way too bratty. Ha, you should see the look on your face." I slowly got up, glaring daggers at him.

"I am perfectly aware that you are able to kill me in mere seconds. I don't need you to scare the shit out of me or injure me to understand that!" I exclaimed, walking to the bathroom to stop the bleeding.

"To be fair, I also did it 'cause it was funny as hell."

"You are unbelievable, you know that?"

"Unbelievably sexy? Yes, I knew that." When I'd managed to stop the bleeding by putting a napkin with cold water on the wound, I headed to the kitchen to get some bandage or something. I almost walked right into Ella who nearly dropped the glass of water and aspirin she'd been holding.

"Here," She handed them over to me, oblivious to my wound. She wasn't the most observant person around. I quickly swallowed the aspirin and took a sip of the water, though I didn't have much of a hangover left after Hidan's stupid prank.

"What's with the truck?" I asked.

"Moving our stuff to the house. We're gonna throw away most of it though, and buy new furniture this week." Ella sighed, she seemed completely worn out. I was a little too much in pain to sympathize though, so I just grunted an "okay," and sat down on my armchair. I spotted Kakashi staring outside, and thought he was finally semi-comfortable being around the S-ranked criminals. I then stared at Itachi and Sasori who were both silently sitting on the couch. I decided that it would be really boring in Akatsuki without Tobi, and for a second there I thought positively about him, until he burst through the door and started singing the song I'd been singing last night.

"_CALL IT WHAT YOU WANT!" _I yelped, holding my head in pain. I hadn't realized how much my head had really hurt until I was confronted with a loud noise.

"Tobi, please quiet down, Suzan has a headache," I heard Ella tell him, and suddenly he was next to me, leaning over and staring at me.

"Ooooh. SORRY, Virgin-chan!" he nearly yelled in my ear. Meanwhile Deidara had managed to piss off Hidan again, who was shouting profanities at him and trying to cut him with his scythe. But at this point my head was aching so bad I didn't even notice.

"Evil… bastard." I hissed loud enough only for him to hear it. I could swear he was smirking as he chuckled. "I already told you, I'm not a fucking virgin, alright!" It was really embarrassing to have a conversation like this in front of the Akatsuki, no less.

"You're not? But then where's your boyfriend?" he asked innocently. I glanced at both Hidan and Deidara, who'd now stopped arguing to laugh at my expense.

"We… we broke up!" I snapped at him.

"So… Suzan-chan had sex, and then she broke up. Sounds a little-"

'I'm _not _a slut!"

"Tobi was going to say that it sounded sad, but if Suzan-chan thinks it sounds slutty…."

I truly wanted to cry.

Why was nearly everyone a sex-obsessed maniac these days?

* * *

><p><strong>Hidan<strong>

I laughed loudly when hearing the conversation between Suzan and Tobi, but soon returned to trying to cut up that stupid she-male with my scythe. Who did that bastard think he was, insulting me like that? _I saw what you did with Suzan, _he'd said with a smirk. _You're getting soft, yeah. _First of all, I wasn't getting fucking soft! I just had decided to follow Leader's orders to not kill her. That was all! So now, naturally, I was trying to kill him, but then of course Kakuzu had to come in the living room and break us up, the asshole never lets me have any fun. I eventually put my scythe away and put my cloak on. Then Pain came in and ordered us all to leave so those strangers could load all the furniture into the truck. He then told me, Deidara and Kakuzu to drive to the house with the two chicks considering we weren't very subtle and the others could just go on their own.

I rolled my eyes and was about to get outside, when I (seeming to be the only one) heard a loud _crack _coming from Ella's room. I curiously walked over, and opened the door. And unfamiliar face greeted me and I was on top of them with my scythe faster than they could blink. I scowled. It was just a girl. From her face I could tell she was younger than both Suzan and Ella, still a teenager. Her hair was a strawberry blonde color, pulled up in back with a clip barrette, a few bangs framing her face. Her eyes were clear blue, and were wide in complete shock.

Was she a thief? If that was the case, then it was my lucky day. I hadn't expected to be able to kill this many heathens when I came here.

"Y-you…." she stuttered, though I doubt she was this blown away only by my good looks "are you… but you can't be!" Now it was my turn to look shocked. Oh, fuck. She knew who I was.

"Oi! We have a problem!" I yelled. Suzan was the first to walk in, followed by Leader and some other guys.

"Lexy!" Suzan gasped.

"Suzy?" the blonde responded, equally flustered. So these two knew each other. Great.

"Who is this girl?" Leader demanded to know. I was also kinda curious by now. She was completely ignoring me, however, and just gaping at the others. I did not like being ignored. I eventually got off her so she could stand up.

"That's… that's our friend. Alexandria." Suzan answered slowly as she helped her up. The blonde, Alexandria, was still gazing at the rest of us, until Ella came walking in. She was shocked for a second, but then _glared _at her.

"Alexandria," she stated, as if she were her mother or something "where have you _been_?" This was the beginning of a long, _long, _LONG, lecture. "You just vanished into thin air! You didn't even bother calling us or sending us a mail, for heaven's sake! If your parents cared I would've really called them, but apparently they don't if they let their teenage daughter run around like this! You are in _such _big trouble young lady! I can't even _begin _to tell you how worried I was, let alone…."

By this part I just zoned out and went to my happy place as Ella continued her epic speech on how Alexandria was in trouble or some shit. To be honest, I really didn't give a shit about any of it.

I just wanted to move out already.

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

When I finally finished my lecture, it was time to explain the situation to Alex. She was shocked, completely dumbstruck at first. But all in all, she took the news well. She certainly seemed rather excited, saying what an awesome adventure it would be. Of course I hadn't told her about the three people having been murdered. When I did eventually tell her about the robbing of a bank, she simply shrugged, stating it could've been worse. She had _no _clue, but I preferred keeping it that way. As for her disappearance, as usual, she didn't want to tell us anything about it. All she said was that it paid well.

It really made me worry sometimes. She was only sixteen, after all. What kind of job could a sixteen year old have? She'd assured me it had nothing to do with drugs or prostitution, and she did look perfectly healthy, but I just couldn't help but get concerned. Lord knew what her parents were doing, as they were certainly not paying any attention to her. Truth be told I never even met them. I knew Alex lived in a nice house and went to school whenever she could, and she knew her way around the more dangerous parts of town. Other than that, though? I didn't know who her friends were, where she hung out when she wasn't with me and Suzan, or when she'd run off again to do some sort of job she'd never tell us anything about.

By now we were in the car, driving to our new house. Suzan was nearly being squashed in between Deidara and Hidan, as Kakuzu valued his personal space and kept shoving Hidan. I figured it would be less awkward for her considering she was a little familiar with the guys by now, so Alex was sitting in the passenger's seat next to me.

"Hey, those guys will need IDs, you know." she noted, and I admitted that was true. "I can fix them for you, if you'd like."

"That would be helpful." Kakuzu stated, though I was more worried than relieved.

"How do you know where to get stuff like that?" I asked with a frown.

"I have contacts." she answered coolly.

"Alex-"

"Ella, seriously. I'm not a baby, alright? I can take care of myself." I sighed, giving it up.

"Alright. So how long are you going to stay this time?"

"For a while. I got a break so I can relax now." Alex answered with a shrug. I wasn't satisfied with the answers she'd given me up until now at all, but I knew there was no persuading her. I tried to get Suzan to do it for me, but Suzan had bluntly refused, stating that if Alex didn't want to tell that we shouldn't force her to. That would only damage our relationship. For once in my life I damned the fact Suzan was studying psychology.

"I see. So, are you gonna stay at our new place?"

"Probably. I mean, your house is bigger than mine now! You even have a pool and everything. Plus," she said, glancing behind her at the Akatsuki members and Suzan arguing with each other "there's no _way _I'd want to miss out on any of this."

* * *

><p><strong>FINALLY. I was supposed to upload it yesterday, but I wasn't quite satisfied with it so I deleted a lot of parts and rewrote most of it.<strong>

**So, I hope you liked it!**

**Also, the song Suzan was singing in the beginning was from Foster The People - Call it what you want (I love it, you should definitely check it out if you haven't heard it yet).**

**A special thanks for yyh-ygo-fma for letting me use her OC, Alex :3 **

**BIG THANKS TO **_**Zoogeys3, Mahri, Bree-Chan, The Ultimate Baka, Broken Names, Dust Bunnies Anonymous, Akatsuki's Bitch, bookiehere, Kid, Deidara's Dragon, yyh-ygo-fma, NAILxPOLISH, GrimmyRayne, Hanoone**_** and **_**Happy Crying**_** for reviewing! I LOVE YOU GUYS! :D**

**Don't forget to review again! ^_^**


	8. Video games

**Suzan**

It had been about three days now since we'd moved in. Everyone seemed to like the house. Or at least I thought they liked the house. It wasn't like Itachi's expression ever really changed so I could only guess. Likewise, Sasori's facial expression was permanent and one could only wonder how it felt like to be a puppet. Pain seemed to approve of it somewhat and Kakuzu, Alex and Kakashi seemed largely indifferent. But Ella, Tobi, Deidara and Hidan were impressed with it.

It was a large villa, the walls painted white and the roof was dark and rust-colored, with a large garage on its left side that could easily fit two cars side by side. It had a neat front yard with plenty of perfectly arranged and colorful flowers. The inside, however, was even more impressive. On the ground floor, the living room was more than large enough to fit all of us, it had two toilets, the kitchen was rather spacious and had a backdoor to the backyard, which had the large, round swimming pool I'd seen in the pictures. Upstairs were all the bedrooms. There were seven in total. Four bedrooms on the first floor, three on the second floor, and both floors had a separate bathroom with large bathtubs. On the second floor there was also another empty room, which had probably been used as a study or lounge.

The house itself was located a little out of town. There were other houses as well, clearly belonging to very rich people. As I calmly looked around the house and I felt guilty for being happy with it. I mean, it had been bought of stolen money after all. But most of my worries disappeared when I took a look at the well-maintained swimming pool. I grinned widely. Good thing it was summer. _Man, I can't wait to-_

Someone shoved me. I fell in the water, a stunned expression on my face as I swam up, and glared up at Alex. She looked around as if she were innocent, but I could tell from her avoiding my eyes she was guilty as hell.

"You bitch! You are _so_ fucking dead!" I climbed out and she quickly ran into the house, giggling the entire time as I was completely soaked and chasing her. She hid behind Ella, who did that thing where she put her hands on her hips and stared at me with that _you're-a-bad-girl_ look your mother always gives you when you did something wrong.

"Suzan."

"Yeah?"

"You're ruining up my carpet." She gestured down to her feet, and only now I noticed Ella's newly bought, red, furry carpet. Right. Oops.

"But… but she started it!" I protested, pointing at Alex, who chuckled.

"Go to your room and change already."

"Fine, _mother._" I muttered annoyed, making my way up the stairs.

"Me, Itachi and Alex will go shopping then, is that alright?" I heard her call, and rolled my eyes.

"Sure, go right ahead and leave me behind with these psycho's. You're _such _a responsible parent." I derided her, but she ignored it. She wasn't really my parent of course, but sometimes she sure acted like it. I appreciated it most of the time because I could be rather reckless every now and then, but it could also be downright irritating.

"Okay, then! See you in a few hours!" Ella responded cheerfully, and a few seconds later I heard the front door close. I sighed, dreading the hours I was going to spend alone with the guys. Especially after what had happened yesterday. Oh, sure, you could say it had been a joke, but what if I managed to piss Hidan off big time? Then what? Would he still joke about it? I didn't think so! I rubbed my forehead as I walked into my own room I shared with Alex.

See, let me explain what had really happened these past three days. The first day after moving in (and almost everyone pretty much sleeping on the floor), we immediately decided to buy furniture. I'd convinced a contact of mine to help moving our new stuff to our new house, using the we-won-the-lottery excuse this time. So, eventually everyone had a separate bed now, and we'd filled most of our house up with furniture. We had new TVs, a PS3, new couches, chairs, tables, but a few things (like the fridge) were still missing or needed replacing.

Alright, so then came the issue of deciding who would get which room. There were only seven rooms and there were eleven of us, me included. Pain pretty much decided to immediately pair up Sasori and Deidara, and Hidan and Kakuzu. Then he paired Itachi and Tobi up, but that was probably because Itachi was the only one who could stand him. Pain himself got his own room of course, since he was the leader and the strongest in the house. So at the end there were only three rooms left, with four people. Me, Alex, Ella and Kakashi. I decided that Ella deserved her own room, and it was a given Kakashi would get his own as well, which left me and Alex paired up in the remaining one, but I didn't mind since it was one of the larger ones.

Anyway, I walked into my room and locked the door behind me. I didn't feel like taking a shower so I simply dried my hair with the hairdryer, and then changed into new clothes after having dried my body as well with a towel. When I walked out I decided to check up on where everyone was and what they were doing.

"X! X! PRESS X TO KICK HIM!"

"WHERE'S X?"

"AARGH! YOU IDIOT!"

Hidan and Deidara were at it again. Er, playing the PS3, I mean. Not trying to kill each other. Which was a fucking miracle, by the way, but I digress. Ever since I taught them how to play Assassin's Creed they wouldn't get off the couch. I imagined that the numerous ways in which Ezio (the main character) brutally murdered his targets was enjoyable. Of course Hidan had kept murdering civilians in the beginning so they hadn't progressed much in the storyline. Kakuzu was curious so he'd watch them every now and then but mostly read his book, and Tobi mostly served as a cheerleader when it was Deidara's turn to play. Sasori was just hanging out on the couch, watching them as he didn't seem to have anything better to do. The others didn't have any interest any more once they'd figured out what it was all about.

"YOU BORGIA COCKSUCKER!" Hidan screamed at the screen when enemy soldiers (belonging to a family called Borgia, by the way) killed him for the hundredth time that day. "FUCK YOU!" He put up his middle finger, as if his "fuck you" needed any more emphasizing.

"I told you to press X." Deidara said smugly. Hidan threw the controller at his head, though the blonde caught it before it actually made contact. I sat down on my good old armchair (I just couldn't discard it) as I watched them struggle to get past the wave of enemy soldiers on the level.

"Fuck! Stupid assholes! Let me through, yeah!" Though Deidara was much better than Hidan, he still hadn't figured out the counter-attack button which had been a life-saver for me on many occasions.

"You can do it senpai!" Tobi encouraged him, jumping up and down. "Oh, watch out for that- oops, too late…."

"SHUT UP, TOBI! IT'S YOUR FAULT I LOST!" Deidara proceeded to strangle Tobi as Hidan snatched the controller away from Deidara's lap and tried it himself again. As I watched him play, I got kind of sucked into the game again as well and started yelling instructions at him.

"Leap of faith, leap of faith!"

"What the fuck is that?"

"JUST JUMP OFF THE BUILDING!"

"Are you crazy? I'LL FUCKING DIE!"

"NOT IF YOU LAND IN THAT HAYSTACK!"

"I'M ON TOP OF A FUCKING GIGANTIC CHURCH FOR FUCK'S SAKE! How the fuck is a haystack going to prevent me from dying?"

"JUST DO IT!"

He jumped, and landed safely in the haystack.

"WHAT THE FUCK? How the fuck does THAT make ANY sense?"

That's Assassin's Creed for ya. No matter how high the building is, as long as you land in hay you'll be A-OK! No try it in real life, I'm sure you'll be fine.

* * *

><p><strong>Alexandria<strong>

I was looking at some fridges together with Ella and Itachi, since the current one was nearly broken. At first I hadn't really wanted to go because I'd thought Ella was going to ask me hundreds of questions about where I'd been and stuff like that, but luckily she only chatted about trivial things. Thing was, what I did wasn't really meant for civilian's ears. Moreover, she'd be safer if she was just entirely oblivious about my… little "side-jobs". Frankly, the only reason I still went to school was so other, normal people wouldn't get suspicious.

But first of all, I'll inform you of the fact that I'm probably one of the best hackers around right now. Alright, not really the best, but hey, in time I will be! My job is easy. Well, it _sounds _easy. Say you have one rich guy, let's call him Bob, who doesn't like some other rich guy, whose name is Frank. So Bob comes to me and asks me to hack into Frank's computer to dig up some, I don't know, dirty information on him to get rid of him or something. Truth be told, I don't care with what motive my clients come to me. As long as they have money I'm cool with it. So I hack Frank's computer, get the info to Bob, I'm paid and everyone is happy. Except Frank, but no one cares about Frank.

So you can understand that a person with a job like that tends to get tangled up in the black market and shady stuff like that. I'd really like to keep my friends mostly out of it. Truth be told, I think I'm already taking a risk by even allowing myself to have friends. My 'guardian' (He's not really my actual parent, nor do we have that familial relationship) has friends in high places so I doubt my enemies would actually do something to piss me off or harm me or my friends. But still, there are a lot of nutjobs out there and usually I wouldn't take any chances.

Of course, Ella being Ella kind of dragged me into this friendship. Actually, at first I couldn't stand her. I mean, she was always so loving and sweet, and I hadn't been used to that so I'd thought it had just been a farce or something. Turns out, she actually is as nice as she looks, and as naïve, but she's like a big sister, or something corny like that. Suzan was… we kind of got along immediately. I can appreciate her vast amount of knowledge and intelligence, even if her temper gets in the way sometimes. I mean, when I'm not pissing her off in one way or another, she teaches me useful things about life. Yes, I realize that sounded cheesy but I didn't exactly have caring parents or a role model growing up, alright? I remember her telling me about how every person was unique and you shouldn't approach them while assuming things about their character, blah blah blah. I'd prefer to just stick with computers, thank you. Human beings are too complicated and I'd rather not bother.

"Lex, what about this one?" Ella asked, pointing to a white fridge on my left. I shrugged.

"Seems fine." What was I, a fridge-expert? I chuckled, wondering if a useless job like that actually existed and if someone actually went to school to study fridges. There was bound to be someone like that, though. The world was full of weirdoes like that.

"Alright then, we'll take this one. It matches the stove nicely." Ella murmured to herself and I rolled my eyes. Like people would actually walk in and check if our stove matched our fridge. Unless our stove was bright blue and the fridge yellow, I doubted anyone would really care.

"Where's Itachi?" I then asked, noticing he wasn't around.

"Go look for him, I'll buy the fridge." Ella said, and I nodded, walking around the giant store. I eventually found him staring at a red lava lamp. He seemed rather… fascinated by it. I stood next to him and also started staring at the lava lamp. To be honest, those things were pretty cool. After about a minute of staring, I said,

"Are you done?" He glanced at me once, and nodded solemnly. He should cheer up. Oh wait. He killed his entire family and now his beloved little brother was out to kill him as revenge. Right, happiness wasn't exactly on this guy's agenda. We walked back to Ella seemed to have made the purchase.

"Let's go!" she said with a smile. I wondered what the others were doing. Probably still playing that video game.

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

"Fuck this shit. I give up." Hidan threw the controller on the couch, pouting like a five year old after being killed again, by some lame foot soldier. I chuckled amused, earning myself a glare. Deidara tried, he got killed as well, and then I decided to show them the REAL awesome video game. The one they'd probably like a lot more than Assassin's Creed.

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2.

"Hey guys, remember how you're supposed to be ehm… fictional?" I asked as I walked over to the little closet beneath the TV, opening a drawer.

"Yes. What's your point?" Sasori asked first. I pulled out the game.

"Well, some people decided to ehm… put you in a game." I showed them the game and for a second they all just stared at it. I'd been playing it on my own up in my own room, (the story mode, that is) and had unlocked all characters in just these past days. Sometimes Alex had played some as well, but I'd mostly played on my own.

"What the fuck are you waiting for? Start it up already!" Hidan demanded. I rolled my eyes and did as he'd asked, starting the game up.

"Hey, that's that Jinchuuriki brat!" Deidara noted when seeing Naruto pop up on the screen. Of course I didn't choose story mode but immediately moved on to free battles. We had four controllers, but we could only play one vs. one battles.

"See, now you can kill each other without… actually killing each other!" I said as I opened the menu showing the controls. Then Ella, Itachi and Alex came home, and joined us, sitting on the couch and Ella sitting on the other armchair.

"Oooh, this should be interesting," Alex noted with a smirk. Of course, after everyone else had tried to memorize the controls, Hidan and Deidara snatched the controllers and searched for their own characters on the screen. They didn't even bother looking at other characters and the battle soon started. It went slow at first, considering they had to get used to the controls but soon it ended up in a real battle.

"DAMMIT! Stop throwing those stupid clay birds at me!" Hidan yelled, trying to get close but Deidara wouldn't let him. His character was a long ranged character, which were annoying to deal with if you didn't know how to dash.

"Press X twice quickly." I eventually told him, tired of getting Hidan get his ass handed to him. Once he'd figured out the dash button, Deidara was pretty much screwed. Eventually the others got annoyed as they wanted a try as well. Kakuzu snatched the controller away from Hidan, who yelled at him, but he just ignored it. Sasori took the other one. After three battles of complete silence between the two, which ended in an eventual win for Sasori, me and Alex got to play.

We raced to pick Minato.

"Ha!" I smirked widely when I reached him first. Alex glared, but picked Itachi instead.

"The Fourth Hokage?" Deidara asked, and I nodded.

"You're finished!" I taunted Alex, who snorted.

"Please, once I bring out Susano'o, _you're_ finished."

"Psh, Susano'o is too slow to keep up with me!"

"Oh really? Wanna bet on that?" Meanwhile, Ella looked at Itachi.

"Who do you think will win?" she asked. Everyone looked at him now.

"As far as I'm aware, in this game the person who has the most skill of hitting a button repeatedly wins." he stated dryly, and I kind of felt embarrassed to be playing it now. Nonetheless, the others were placing bets. They were making so much noise that Kakashi and Pain came down as well, and Ella had to explain to them what this was all about. At the same time, our battle had just started.

"HAX! I CALL HAX!"

"Oh shut it! Your Rasengan was just too slow!"

"Oh really? TAKE THIS!"

"WHAT? THAT'S BULL! I BLOCKED!"

Eventually Susano'o smashed me into pieces and I lost.

FORGIVE ME, MINATO!

"Hah! You were just lucky! I can beat you with any other character!" I mocked, trying to save my ego somewhat.

"Oh? Even when I'm playing as Pain?" Alex challenged me. Challenge accepted!

"Choose any character for me. Except the really weak ones, like TenTen or Sakura."

"Alright then, we'll stick with Akatsuki. Weakest members…. Hmm, Deidara and Sasori are long ranged and a real pain to fight. I'd get the upper hand in a close ranged battle. Who's the… oh." She smirked. "Hidan, then." The real one glared at her, insulted, and wanted to yell but Pain gestured for him to stop, seeming to be amused. I frowned. It was going to be a real challenge but I wasn't about to back down.

"You'd better not fucking lose, Sunshine!" Hidan warned me.

"I won't." I replied, choosing his character on screen. "Bring it on!" Three minutes later-

"STOP USING ALMIGHTY PUSH!" I yelled at her, almost throwing a fit.

"Then you STOP SOUL HUNTING!" she replied, annoyed. Both of those techniques were a real pain in the ass for the other person. Almighty Push especially annoyed me. Whenever I got close Pain would just throw me away like a ragdoll with that jutsu. At least I got my Soul Hunting, which was a highly damaging series of melee attacks. Eventually I decided to use the dash button as much as possible, to get close to her before she could even react, and got the upper hand and eventually won. Hidan seemed especially happy with this.

"HA! SUCK ON THAT, BITCHES!" I high-fived him with a smirk, while Alex glowered at me.

"You only won because you spammed that one stupid technique." she huffed.

"Still won," I pointed out, sticking out my tongue to her and vaguely realizing she'd get me back later with a prank or something.

Then Ella decided to have a try at it, and randomized the character. It landed on Sasuke. The Akatsuki-version.

"What's he doing with that cloak on, yeah?" Deidara asked angrily. I sighed.

"It's too complicated, let's just leave it at that," Ella said. We both looked at Itachi, whose expression seemed to have darkened a bit. In any case, Tobi had decided to give it a try, and randomized his character as well. It landed on Kakashi, which kind of made the real one feel rather awkward.

I never knew Ella could be that fanatic about a video game until the battle started.

"No!" she shrieked when Tobi used Kamui on her, "NOT FAIR!" The real Kakashi chuckled, obviously amused by now.

"Yay, Tobi is winning!"

"No you're not!" She used Amaterasu on him, and then it turned into who could spam which technique the most.

"Aw! I don't like that technique!"

"Yes! I WON!"

"NOOOOOOOO! ELLA-CHAN IS SO MEAN! TOBI DOESN'T LIKE ELLA-CHAN ANYMORE!"

The entire night seemed to pass like that, with everyone having a go at it. I especially laughed when Hidan got defeated by Pain who'd been using Konan.

"STUPID PAPER BITCH!" he cursed.

And then it got worse when Kakuzu owned him with his own character.

"SCREW YOU KAKUZU!"

And he nearly broke the TV when Deidara defeated him with Asuma's character.

"I'm not mad! I killed that fucker in real life! Who cares if he beat me in some video game?" he obviously lied as his eye started twitching. Then he broke. "I HATE THIS GAME! FUCK YOU, GAME!" he yelled, and Deidara had to restrain him or he would've cut the PS3 in half with his scythe.

It was certainly a night to remember.

* * *

><p><strong>Short chapter, mostly for humor and background info on Alex. I thought I wouldn't be able to upload until tomorrow, but I managed to finish my homework in early (LOL, underestimated myself there), so… yeah.<strong>

**I probably won't upload until Friday, though. Lots of tests. School hates me D:**

**BIG THANKS TO _stateofemergency, Bree-Chan, Broken Names, Crimson Trickster, NAILxPOLISH, Mahri, The Ultimate Baka, yyh-ygo-fma, Bookielovesanimeeee, Hanoone and Akatsuki's Bitch_ for reviewing! YOU ROCK! **

**More reviews? :D? I **_**might **_**make another short chapter upload tomorrow if you guys give me lots (it gives me motivation) of reviews. If not, you'll just have to wait until Friday.**

**Bye bye! :3**


	9. Step by step

**Okay, I managed to write this. It's a rather short chapter.**

**Anyway, this chapter is probably gonna be different than what you're used to from me. It's gonna start with Eva's POV.**

**And yes, I know, I heard you guys, you've told me about a hundred times already, "Cloud, ENOUGH OCs!" I understand that, I'm not retarded, thank you kindly for informing me ^_^**

**Could you just do me a small favor, and read this chapter without assuming anything or judging it beforehand? Just read it, completely, and I promise you, you won't be disappointed! I hope. If you do get disappointed flame me all you want.**

**Trust me on this one, okay? Please? Do it for me? Pretty please with cherries on top?**

**Thanks, and enjoy.**

* * *

><p><strong>Eva<strong>

I was _so _excited. It had been such a long time since I'd last seen my big sister, and I was looking forward to seeing her again. She'd been my role model ever since I'd been a small kid. I'd been a disobedient and rebellious child, and my parents didn't know how to deal with me. But Ella was the only person I would never mouth off to. She understood me and was always there to help. Whether it be silly things like what outfit to wear for a date, or studying for a big test, she'd always try her best to support me. Then, she moved out, just two years after Wyatt had moved out as well. I didn't want her to, but I didn't want to be egotistical and try to convince her to stay just becauseI needed her. Then, for a while, I'd been living alone with mom and dad. We all had been living in Iowa originally, but then Ella had moved all the way to Wisconsin.

She'd had a friend there who hooked her up with a job at a nice little restaurant. At least, that's what she'd told me. She'd been only eighteen at the time, but my sister had always been independent and responsible enough to take care of herself. My parents trusted her unquestionably and so did I. There, in Wisconsin, she'd met Suzan as well.

Eventually my parents moved to that state as well. I had a suspicion it was mostly because they wanted to stay close to Ella. Don't get me wrong, I loved my sister, but I wasn't about to move to a completely different state in the middle of a school year. So, I stayed with Wyatt, and that's where I've been staying for a long time. He's a good brother, though lazy and sloppy at times, but I still loved him as well. Of course I'd never tell him that in any normal situation, since that would be kinda embarrassing.

I pulled my luggage with me to the car. Wyatt's car had broken down (ironic, considering he's a car dealer), and mom and dad had offered to pick us up instead. Frankly, I think they'd just needed an excuse to come see us again and I didn't particularly mind. Not at all, actually. I'd missed them a lot too. Mom was strict, dad was way too overprotective sometimes, but I could talk to them about anything. I think it's rare to find parents like that. At least, that's the impression I get from my friends when they complain about theirs.

I greeted both my parents with a hug, feeling a little awkward when I got a big, wet kiss from my mother and handed Wyatt my luggage so he could put them in the back of the car. Mom asked me these trivial questions about how things were going on school and if I'd done anything fun lately, which I responded to with generic answers like, "No, not really," or "Yeah, it's going well".

"You know your sister moved out, right?" dad said as he drove the car to the highway, and I nodded. "Said she won the lottery! Well I can't wait to see their new house. She said it was huge."

"Oh, did she tell you about her boyfriend?" mom then asked and I frowned, shaking my head.

"No, not at all." I responded. Though I knew she was having guys over, she didn't tell me she had a boyfriend. I knew Ella was really passionate about love, but she didn't strike me as the type to cheat. My sister was better than that!

"You should see him, Eva!" mother said, dreamily, almost swooning. "He's so handsome! Such manners, as well, yes, a true gentleman!"

"Doesn't surprise me, Ella wouldn't just date any guy," Wyatt noted, probably referring to her high standard.

"What's his name?" I asked curiously. The way mother talked about him would almost make me think that he was a prince or something.

"Isaac. Not the best name, I know, but he seems like a very good kid." mom informed me, staring out the window. She was sitting in the passenger's seat next to my dad, and me and Wyatt were sitting in the back. It was dark outside, probably evening already. We'd been driving for about fifteen minutes and I was starting to get sleepy, as I'd gone out the other night with some friends.

"Hmm, can't wait to meet him," I said honestly, as I hadn't seen mom this excited over a boy in a long time.

"What's that nut doing?" dad suddenly muttered. Me and Wyatt leaned forward, and saw a car driving on the lane next to us, in the opposite direction, which was also the _wrong _direction. This made me nervous.

"Oh dear," mother said. Wyatt snorted, as the car got closer and closer to ours.

"Probably some drunk." he mumbled and I agreed, watching the car curiously. It did swerve a little bit, I noticed.

Right as the car was nearing, I saw it suddenly turn our direction. I caught a glimpse of the driver. He was passed out, with his head on the steering wheel. Dad didn't react fast enough to avoid him.

The collision was over with before I could even react to it. I heard my mother scream, and felt like I was being thrown around like a ragdoll.

Then it all ended, and the burning, agonizing pain in my legs and my torso was the last thing I felt before the darkness embraced me and I closed my eyes for the very last time.

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><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

It had been a nice Saturday morning. No screams or cusses, nothing in the house being wrecked or the sound of Tobi being strangled again, and I knew I was supposed to be happy with this. I was supposed to feel like today was going to be a good day. But for some reason I felt empty. No, not that kind of emo-emptiness. Just an all around indifference towards everything around me. I got up from my bed and spotted Alex still contently sleeping in her bed, curled up in the blankets and decided to leave her be as I walked out and got downstairs. Ella had already made breakfast, I could smell it. I was still in my red PJs as I walked in the kitchen and spotted most of the guys eating.

"Good morning," Ella greeted me cheerfully, like she did every morning, the frying pan with bacon and eggs in her left hand as she put the food on Hidan's plate.

"Morning," I muttered hazily, rubbing my eyes out and yawning loudly afterwards.

"You should probably wash up, yeah. You look horrible." Deidara noted as he drank some of his tea. I rolled my eyes and sat down next to Kakuzu, who'd evidently already eaten something and was now just drinking his orange juice. As if it was my fault some idiots decided to fight the entire night. They might be used to going days without sleep, but I sure as hell wasn't.

"Want some pancakes?" Ella asked, and I nodded.

"Thanks."

"Is Lexy still asleep?"

"Yeah. I didn't feel like waking her up." I began eating the pancake with butter she'd given me, not even noticing how great it tasted. Eventually Ella herself sat down as well to eat as well. I only then noticed that Pain, Itachi, Tobi, Kakashi and Sasori were missing. They'd probably eaten already. Hidan was eating his food as if it were the last thing he'd ever eat, but the rest of the guys seemed to take their time.

"I'm gonna take a dive today. Wanna come?" I asked Ella, who shook her head. She hadn't been in the swimming pool once, which surprised me a little. She usually liked swimming.

"Don't feel like it today," she said with an apologetic smile, and I shrugged.

"If you say so. I'll just swim by myself."

"Actually, I feel like swimming too, yeah." Deidara decided, which was fine with me.

"Then I'll go too. Any chance to drown you is worth it," Hidan said in turn, which was _not _fine with me. Ella had gone out of her way to buy swimming trunks for all of them. I then realized something very important.

"Isn't Eva coming over today?" I saw Ella tense a little, and knew she didn't want her baby sister involved with these criminals. But there wasn't much she could do about it now. "What time, anyway?"

"She said she'd be here in the morning, so she could arrive at any minute." Ella responded. Hidan let out a loud sigh.

"Just what we needed, another brat!" he complained. "You may as well invite your whole fucking family while you're at it!"

"Hidan. Shut up." Kakuzu snapped at him impatiently.

"What? I'm just saying, it's getting really annoying!"

"Your face is getting annoying."

"Oh real classy, Kakuzu. You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"Pot, meet kettle. You're both black."

"Shut up, Deidara-chan."

"Oi! Stop calling me that!"

I sighed, being used to this kind of banter by now. I would've been amused by it at first, but as I said, today I just felt blah, you know? I finished my plate and quickly drank up my tea, then waited for the others to stop arguing and finish their breakfast so me and Ella could clean up already. That was when Alex walked in, looking even worse than I did, probably because she only got about an hour of sleep.

"Maybe you should go back to bed," Ella suggested worriedly, but Alex waved her concern away.

"Relax, it's no big deal." she murmured with a yawn as she sat down next to me. That's when Ella's phone went off, which she'd left in the living room. She got up and left, to go pick it up. I watched Alex nearly devour her food and chuckled at her. She stared at me, puzzled as to why I was laughing, and I helpfully wiped a bit of bacon off her cheek with a napkin.

"Hungry?"

"A little," she muttered, getting embarrassed.

"Damn, you eat like a pig!" Hidan said, and if he'd been any more childish he would've pointed right at her.

"Hello mister pot, this is mister kettle!"

"SHUT UP, DEIDARA!"

"You shut up, hypocrite!"

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

"Hello?"

"_Is this miss Ella Livesey?"_

"Yes, that's me."

"_Miss, you might want to sit down before I tell you this." _I started to feel worried by now. I didn't recognize the voice on the phone and something told me I wasn't going to like what I heard. I furrowed my brows ever so slightly before responding to the stranger.

"I'm fine. Could you please tell me what this is all about?"

"_My name is doctor Derek Hendrickson from the Saint Clara hospital. I'm terribly sorry, but…" _

Oh. _Oh. _I heard "parents" and "siblings" and "dead". Then the world started spinning. I gasped for air, but couldn't find any. Surely this was a mistake? Certainly they had confused me with another Ella Livesey? But "no", the kind doctor told me in his sympathetic voice, telling me my parent's names to prove that I was the right person without a doubt. He then started talking about some drunk driver, but I couldn't hear him anymore. My entire body went numb and it felt like the ground beneath me had caved in and I was falling down in an endless pit. _No, no, no, no, no… _I kept repeating that single word in my head. _No. _

Not my mother. Not my father. Not my brother. Not my sister. _Not my family. _It couldn't be. They couldn't have been torn away from me like this. Not with one phone call from some unknown doctor. What did I have left now? A thousand thoughts raced through my head. Why had this happened? Could I have prevented it? Did I cause it? But above all those thoughts was a feeling of pain so great that I couldn't even breathe anymore. My heart was pounding, my vision started to blur and I just wanted to disappear if it would make the agony stop. Realization hit me hard, too hard. I didn't even hear Suzan, didn't even see her or feel her when she grabbed my shoulders.

My body stopped functioning and I fell down, my vision turning to black.

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

I suddenly heard a loud gasp coming from the living room, and frowned, getting up immediately to check up on Ella. She was standing in the middle of the room, a hand on her phone as she blankly stared out the window which she was standing in front of. The hand which was holding her phone was trembling uncontrollably, as were her knees. She started hyperventilating, and I rushed over to her, taking the phone out of her hand and putting it away.

"Ella? What's wrong?" I asked her anxiously, holding her tightly by her shoulders. She could barely breathe and suddenly fainted in my arms. I barely managed to catch her, completely confused about what had just happened. Then I talked to the doctor on the phone who still hadn't hung up, and I was petrified. I hung up after the chat, and gently placed Ella on the couch.

She'd lost her entire family in such a sudden blow. It had came out of nowhere, and she was the last person on earth who deserved something this horrible to happen to them. I felt myself crying for her, and her family. I hadn't known them that well, but her parents had always been so nice to me. The worst of it was Eva. She'd been so young, and then have her life taken away from her just because some despicable bastard had to get drunk. I felt sick as I wiped my tears away and pulled myself together.

"What the fuck?" I looked up and spotted Hidan who had Deidara in a headlock, who'd normally would've struggled but was now just staring at me as well. "What are you crying about?" he seemed alarmed, letting Deidara go immediately. I took a deep breath, and explained the situation to them.

"Woah. That sucks, yeah." Deidara said, genuinely feeling sorry for her.

I was too busy to worrying over Ella to even respond to that. When Alex came in Deidara explained it for me. Kakuzu had walked in as well, but he just walked to the backyard, not caring one bit. Alex seemed so astonished.

"That's… that's so horrible…." she muttered, her hand over her mouth as if she couldn't believe it.

When Ella then woke up, she just stared at me, and started sobbing softly, which eventually turned into a hysterical fit of crying and screaming. She held onto me like I was a lifeline and I did my best not to cry with her. She needed me to be strong, because I needed to support her this time. I don't know how long she sat there in my arms and cried her heart out, but it didn't really matter. There was nothing I could tell her to make it better, absolutely nothing. What _could _you even tell someone in that situation? So I just kept silent and let her weep. Alex stayed with us most of the time. When Pain and the others came in she informed them of the situation so I wouldn't have to. Every time she did, Ella's nails dug into my back a little bit, but I didn't mind.

After what seemed like forever, I escorted her to her room as she'd softly stated that she wanted to sleep. She looked so frail, as if the slightest gust of wind could knock her over. There she stayed in her room, for days and days on end. She didn't cook, so Alex (who was proficient in cooking) took over. Ella got a call from her aunt which I picked up for her. The lady informed me she would arrange the funeral, so Ella wouldn't have to worry about that, at least. But the fate of the family restaurant was in her hands. I checked up on her whenever I could, and every day it seemed like she was getting worse.

Trying to talk with her was futile. She barely formed any coherent sentences anymore. She'd only say either "yes" or "no", while staring blankly at her knees, her eyes red and swollen. I'd given up trying to have a conversation with her, as had Alex. We'd both decided it was best to let her heal on her own. Some of the guys weren't that understanding, though. They'd complain about it at times, which of course made me and Alex incredibly angry at them, but I didn't really expect anything else from them. They were Akatsuki after all.

* * *

><p><strong>Alexandria<strong>

After about three weeks of absolute isolation, three weeks of the most depressing atmosphere around the house, Kakashi (who'd been one of the few to sympathize) decided enough was enough. I agreed that it was time for Ella to get out of her room, at the very least, but I really didn't want to force her to do anything in her current state.

"I'll go talk to her," he told me, and I wasn't sure if it was such a good idea.

"I'll… I'll come with you." I eventually decided, and we walked up the stairs. He knocked on Ella's door, and as usual, there was no response. He opened the door and walked in, I followed him. The room was dark and a mess of clothes, torn family pictures and books spread out on the ground. Ella was lying down on her bed like always and staring up at the ceiling. She didn't even glance when we walked in.

"Ella?" he asked. She still didn't look at him. "How are you feeling?" She now did look at him, but didn't respond. She looked absolutely awful. She'd lost weight, getting too skinny and had an empty look in her eyes. Her lips were all dried up and her hair was even messier than it usually was. I scowled, hating to see her like that. Kakashi continued. "You've spent the last weeks locked up in your room. Don't you want to come downstairs for a little bit?" he then asked her, gently. She bit on her lower lip, shaking her head slowly.

"I… no." Her voice sounded hoarse and shaky.

"Why not?" Kakashi questioned. She looked away, and didn't answer. "You can't stay here forever, Ella."

"Says who?" she murmured, pulling the blanket up to her chin. I watched her anxiously, wondering whether I should speak up or not. I watched Kakashi walk over to her bed and sit on the side, looking at her. She avoided his gaze.

"We both know this isn't working." he stated carefully, his voice empathetic and kind. "You know… you have to leave it behind you at some point, right?" I watched her as her eyes started to tear up, and wanted to hug her but didn't want to interrupt the conversation.

"I… I don't know how!" she whispered miserably, starting to sob. "I can't just… pretend nothing happened or… or forget!"

"I would never ask that of you, Ella. But you can't torture yourself like this forever. You need to take small steps to recovery eventually, that's all I want. Could you do that for me? Come downstairs with me? Please?" She looked so vulnerable. I wasn't certain if I wanted her to go downstairs with people like Hidan who'd run their mouths without thinking about what they were even saying. If he said one wrong word Ella would break down again and lock herself up in her room again. But Ella, Ella nodded. She nodded ever so slowly, uncertainly, but accepted Kakashi's offer nevertheless. She took his hand as he helped her get off the bed and lead her outside.

I followed silently, watching Ella closely, making sure she would be okay. Her eyes narrowed because of the lights, and she seemed so small all of a sudden. Kakashi carefully helped her to get down the stairs, as her legs were a little shaky, and I followed closely behind. In the living room, Hidan and Deidara were scolding Tobi for something he'd done, and Kakuzu, Sasori and Suzan were on the couch, the latter who was watching TV. She noticed us first, and stood up when seeing Ella.

"Ella, are you alright?" she asked immediately. Ella didn't really respond, just bowed her head, as to say, _I could be worse_. I watched Hidan vigilantly, and though he stared at her, he didn't say anything. Deidara gave her a sympathetic look, but was silent as well.

"Ella-chan looks really bad," Tobi muttered. Ella only glanced at him and looked away again. Tobi then looked at me. "Is Ella-chan going to be okay?"

"I… I think so. Eventually." I answered unsurely. How could anyone be okay after going through something like that? How did you put that behind you? I sighed.

At least she was making progress, step by step.

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><p><strong>I told you to trust me, didn't I? Though… this wasn't exactly the most cheerful solution to the problem *cough*<strong>

**Anyway, hear me out before you tell me I'm a horrible person: I know the main genres are humor and romance, but a bit of tragedy is necessary to develop characters and the plot. You can't expect people to develop in goofy or just lovey-dovey situations, can you? If I could put up another genre I would probably put "tragedy". I mean, Hidan already killed three people so that counts for tragedy as well. But, the site only lets me choose two genres, unfortunately. **

**I promise the next chapter will be less gloomy!**

**BIG THANKS TO **_**yyh-ygo-fma, Bookielovesanimeeee, Hanoone, Bree-Chan, Dust, The-First-Polymythical, The Ultimate Baka, Akatsuki's Bitch, Mahri, NAILxPOLISH and XxxForeverfallenangelxxX**_** for reviewing! IT'S VERY MUCH APPRECIATED! :D**

**Now you can yell at me, tell me what a monster I am for doing that to poor Ella, that I suck for this sudden plot twist, that I fail as a writer, etc, etc, in your review. **

**As you can see… I'm not expecting much positive feedback on this chapter D:**


	10. Bonding moments

**Huh. Well, that last chapter was received better than I expected O.o**

**ZOMG YAAAAY! OVER A 100 REVIEWZ!**

**Anyway, enjoy the next chapter :3**

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><p><strong>Ella<strong>

I didn't speak much to anyone the next few days. I wasn't interested in talking, because at that point I was still trying process everything that had happened. At first I focused on the why, until I realized that was pointless, because there was no why for me. It just was. It didn't need a reason. I happened to be unlucky. My family happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Knowing that made me just feel so much more depressed than I already was. I just couldn't see a way out of it. I was going to be miserable for the rest of my life, that's what it felt like. Everything I did just felt so pointless, as if my reason for existence had just been erased.

I was sitting outside, at the edge of the pool with my legs in the water as I stared at the clear sky, watching a few birds fly by every now and then, contemplating what would happen next. First I asked myself when I could look at family pictures again without crying. I'd torn most of them, or had hidden them away so I wouldn't have to look at them anymore. My only, distant aunt was taking care of the family restaurant. She was my only relative left. I barely knew her, as she and my mother had never gotten along much. I hadn't even been able to go to their funeral. I would've had another breakdown, and I wanted to avoid that.

"Are you sure?" Alex had asked me at the time, though she didn't seem to disagree with my choice. I'd nodded. I was certain I didn't want to go. Even if I'd wanted to, I just _couldn't. _

I sighed deeply, my mouth feeling dry and my eyes feeling like they'd ran out of tears as I moved my feet a little in the water, staring down. I hadn't slept in days, just cried on end and it was beginning to take its toll on me. I felt so tired and weak. I heard footsteps behind me, but didn't even bother looking who it was. At this point I really didn't care. But I was surprised when I noticed the Akatsuki cloak from the corner of my eyes. Eventually I turned my head a little, and looked at Itachi, who was staring up at the sky, silently. He then met my gaze. We didn't need to speak to understand.

I don't know how long we sat there, but it must've been at least an hour because the sun began setting. I was just fine with this. Talking made me tired and frustrated. Suzan and Alex had tried to fix me by trying to talk to me, but I didn't need anyone trying to fix me like that. I needed someone to mourn with me, or just know that they understood my pain. We didn't look at each other once, nor said even a word, as we stared up at the sky. I felt calm, for the first time in weeks. Then, I heard him stand up again from his spot. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and a reassuring squeeze, and I knew that I'd been understood. He left, and eventually, I lied down on my back, watching the colors of the sky change as the sun set.

I'd never realized how beautiful it was.

"Ella?" I heard Suzan call unsurely. I heard her footsteps as well as she drew closer, and noted a distinct difference between hers and Itachi's. Hers were more rhythmic and fast-paced. Itachi's were calm and almost made no sound. I don't know why that registered, but I'd been having weirder thoughts lately. Comparing footsteps had just been a thing I'd developed recently. I don't know why, though. "Hey, dinner is ready." she then told me. I glanced at her. She was staring down at me worriedly, and I felt guilty for making her fuss over me like that.

"Okay," I mumbled softly. She seemed surprised, as I usually just nodded.

"Do you… do you want to eat outside?" This time I did nod.

"Yes, that would be nice." I added. She smiled at me, clearly relieved that I'd started talking again. I only then noticed how croaky my voice sounded.

"Alright, I'll get you your plate," Suzan left me alone again, and I didn't move until she returned with my food. I sat up straight, and took the plate with chicken and rice on it. Suzan, probably not wanting to bother me, left me as well. The calmness I'd felt before turned into emptiness. The food had no taste and the beauty of the sky had disappeared once again.

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

I sat back down at the tall dinner table, feeling a little better now I knew Ella was feeling slightly better as well. Or at least it seemed like she did. Meanwhile both me and Alex had decided to try and keep the more reckless or insensitive Akatsuki members away from her. Of course Tobi complained about it, and so did Hidan because he missed her cooking, but I was determined not to let either of them anywhere near her. This kind of made Hidan decide to annoy me even more as revenge. I ate my food and he kept glaring at me as he was sitting right across me. I ignored it to the best of my ability as I took a sip of my water and decided to chat with Deidara next to me, just to piss him off more. I knew he hated being ignored.

"So, you guys wanna go to a theme park or something? You must be getting bored by now." I suggested. It had been hard to miss it. They'd really been bored the past few days and had decided to take it out on each other by fighting constantly. Pain did send Itachi to regularly go search for that old lady, but so far no such luck. Deidara frowned for a second.

"Don't know what that is, but it sounds alright, yeah." he decided, looking at the other members.

"Theme park? Oooh, Tobi wants to go!" the masked goofball immediately said, flailing his arms as if he didn't get his point across by just saying it. "Tobi wants to go! TOBI WANTS TO GO!"

"We get it! I'll take you there tomorrow, then. It's just an hour drive." I said, and looked at Alex. "You wanna come too?" I asked. She shrugged.

"Maybe. I don't really wanna leave Ella here alone though." She was in no state to go out the way she was at the moment, but we couldn't just leave her behind either.

"I'll stay with her." Kakashi decided. He was sitting on my other side, away from all the bad guys. I decided that was a good solution.

"You sure you wanna miss out on all the fun, though?"

"It's no big deal." he said simply. He'd already eaten all his food, successfully hiding his face from all the curious people (me included). I don't know how he did it, but he ate his food even before I got a chance to take a quick peek. Freaking ninjas.

"I'd prefer to stay as well." Itachi decided, and so did Sasori and Kakuzu. It was a given Pain would stay. Someone with eyes like his was going to stand out for sure. I frowned.

"You're gonna leave us alone with Tobi and Hidan? With Deidara who wouldn't be able to restrain either of them?" I repeated with a scowl. What if Hidan decided to go another killing spree? That would be an utter disaster.

"Good point. Kakuzu," Pain looked at the man, who glared daggers at him "accompany them and keep Hidan and Tobi in check."

"Fine," he grumbled in response, obviously not happy with this prospect, but he didn't object to his leader's decision. I rubbed my temples as I got up and put my plate away. I'd volunteered to do the dishes, considering Alex had made the food. The others finished their food fairly quickly as well, and I started doing the dishes, putting them in the dishwasher. When I was done with that, I decided to go check up on Ella who was still outside. Then I saw Hidan walking towards the backdoor and quickly blocked his path, standing in front of him. He looked down at me with a deep scowl.

"Move it, Sunshine." he ordered as if I were his dog or something. _What a dick._

"No, Ella needs to be alone." I replied, and he rolled his eyes.

"I'm just gonna take a fucking swim!"

"Oh? Then where are your swimming trunks?" Busted. Hidan glared intensely at me, but I was kind of used to it by now. I don't know why, but he'd started acting a lot more hostile lately. Maybe it was because I wouldn't let him near Ella and scolded him when he tried, or maybe it was something else entirely. Whatever. The guy was a walking killing machine. Him being a little more hostile than usual isn't such a big deal.

"Just move already!"

"I won't- hey, let me go!"

"Then get out of my way!"

"You let go first!"

I don't know _how _it happened. Somehow in between him trying to shove me away and me trying to resist, I'd gotten my fingers around his amulet and when he tried to shove me, I pulled the thing with me, and then it snapped. The beads fell to the ground, spreading out and the amulet itself hit the floor with a loud noise. Hidan gaped at it for a second, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. The look he gave me then sent chills down my spine. His killing intent was so intense I was frozen on the spot like a deer caught in the headlights of a car. Before I knew it I was smashed against the wall and I was gasping for air.

"_That _was a _holy _symbol you fucking _heathen_!" he spat furiously, his scythe at my neck before I could even respond. I was rather petrified so I just gazed at him, feeling as though my brain had suddenly stopped working. "You…." It looked like he couldn't find the words for what he wanted to say. I'd truly never seen him this mad over anything. He then raised his scythe up high, and I watched it come down on me, thinking that this was it. I was going to get my head chopped off. Suddenly he stopped, and took a step back. It was obvious he was debating whether or not to kill me, and I could only stare and wait for him to make a decision. There was a moment of silence, and I felt like I should say something.

"I… I didn't-"

"Save it you fucking bitch!" he yelled at me, proceeding to stalk out of the kitchen, not even bothering to pick up whatever was left from his necklace. I stood there, a little staggered, for almost a whole minute, before I stared down at the fallen beads and amulet. I hadn't realized it had meant that much to him. I supposed that was a side we'd never gotten to see in the manga. I felt kind of guilty for wrecking it, but it had been a fucking accident! It wasn't like I did it on purpose! Despite that, I sighed deeply and picked up all the beads and the amulet. Some of those stupid beads had rolled under the table so it was a real pain getting all of them. Then Deidara walked in on me and gave me a questioning look.

I showed him the amulet and he was a little flustered for a second.

"You broke his amulet and he hasn't killed you yet? Weird, yeah." Deidara muttered. "That thing is holy to him, I think." I got up, having finally collected everything. "What are you gonna do with that?" I gave him a frown.

"Fix it, of course." I stated matter-of-factly, walking out the kitchen. It seemed an obvious thing to do. If it was that holy to him, then it was up to me to fix it again. I felt really bad for ruining it. Hidan wasn't in the living room. He was probably sulking on the roof or raging in his room, yelling to Kakuzu or something. Deidara followed me.

"Why?" he asked puzzled. "it's not like he ever did anything for you, yeah." I sat down on the couch and he sat down next to me. For a second there I also pondered it for a moment. It wasn't like I'd get anything out of it. At best he would forgive me for it, but then why did I care about that? He regularly annoyed me, had even injured me at some point, and I was trying to fix his stuff.

"That's not the point. I broke something that was very valuable to someone, so I should at least try and fix it. That's called _decency_." I eventually decided that was the best answer, and looked at an insulted Deidara with a smirk.

"Hey! I'm a decent person, yeah!"

"Did I ever say you weren't? The fact that you're being so defensive about it probably means you think you're actually _not _a decent person."

"Oh shut up!" I chuckled, deciding to go and look for a stronger string for the necklace. One that wouldn't break as easily. Eventually I found one, in a dark red color. I started putting the beads on it and Deidara watched me for a while. "Seriously though, why didn't he kill you?" I shrugged, trying to come off as indifferent, but I was wondering that myself. Not that I _wanted _to die, but if this thing had truly been that valuable to him, I couldn't imagine why he wouldn't just kill me off. Maybe he feared Pain enough to obey?

"Maybe I'm just that special," I joked half-heartedly.

"Huh. Well, you look pretty but you're not smoking hot or anything, yeah."

"Thanks." I responded sarcastically, though I didn't actually mind it, it was true after all. I wasn't a babe or anything. Just an average, pretty looking girl. He grinned playfully.

"You're loud sometimes too, and kind of annoying. Plus-"

"I get it, already!" I huffed, now slipping the amulet over the string, and continuing with the rest of the beads. Pain then walked in, looking a little tired, and stared at the amulet in my hands.

"So you're the one who broke Hidan's necklace. What are you doing with it?" he asked.

"Fixing it."

"Why?"

"Really? _Really_? I know you're merciless killers and all, but don't you have _any _sense of common decency?"

"No."

I rolled my eyes, continuing to putting the last beads on the string and tying the loose ends up tightly. Now to go find that crazy Jashinist and apologize.

* * *

><p><strong>Alexandria<strong>

"Lexy-chan? Alex-chan? Dria-chan? Andri-chan?"

"Could you just pick one name already?" I said, starting to get really irritated. Did he really have to put up this façade around me? I already knew his secret. Seems like this guy was very dedicated to his role of goofball. Tobi was walking in circles around me, chanting several nicknames. It started to get creepy, almost as if he was trying to curse me or something.

"Alexy-chan!" he then called out and looked at me for my opinion. My left eye started twitching.

"No."

"Aw! DriDri-chan?"

"No."

"Ria-chan?"

"How would you like it if I started calling you BiBi?" I countered. There was a silence, and suddenly Tobi started giggling.

"That's so funny! I like that name!"

"It's not supposed to be funny!" We were standing in the backyard. Kakashi had taken Ella back up to her room and was now reading his book on a chair near the pool. The others were all inside.

"But Tobi can't help it if it sounds funny," Tobi said innocently. "Alex-chan's name is so much longer than Tobi's! Alexandria… yeah, that's really long!" I felt something inside my head go _snap_ when I heard that name. Fact was that I absolutely hated it, that's why I always asked people to call me by nicknames.

"Please don't say that name again," I requested, managing to keep my cool. Of course, Tobi is an evil bastard (a cool one at that, but evil nevertheless) and he wasn't about to give up on annoying me.

"But it sounds kind of nice. A-lex-an-dri-a!" he spelled it out for me, and my hand started itching. I could swear I could _hear _him smirking underneath that mask.

"Tobi, seriously…. Don't. It's a bad word. Okay?"

"Oooooooh." There was a long silence. Then, "ALEXANDRIA, ALEXANDRIA, ALEXANDRIA, ALEXANDRIA, ALEXA-"

"SHUT UP!"

"WAAAAAH! ALEX-CHAN, DON'T KILL ME! TOBI IS A GOOD BOY!"

Tobi hid behind Kakashi's chair as I glowered at him, feeling an intense hate for that name. Kakashi looked up from his book and blinked, starting to feel uncomfortable.

"Ah, calm down, Alex, he was just… joking… ehm… you can stop glaring now."

"Yeah, yeah! Tobi was just joking! Forgive Tobi, please?" I took a deep breath, folding my arms as I composed myself.

"Right. Just don't… call me that again, alright?" Tobi nodded fervently.

"Okay, Alexandria-chan!"

Kakashi facepalmed.

"Tobi,"

"Yes, Alexandria-chan?"

"Why are you still calling me that?"

"Well, Tobi added the "-chan" behind it so technically it's not the same- PLEASE DON'T KILL TOBI!" he yelped, hiding behind Kakashi again, but he was probably enjoying himself by now. Oh, I really liked it as well when he angered other people too, but not if it was me, of course. At the same time Kakashi kind of stood in the way of my glare and it clearly was making him feel uneasy. But he'd have to endure it for now. If the only thing I could do to these guys was glare, considering they'd kick my ass in a battle, you can bet on it my glare would be a deadly one.

* * *

><p><strong>Hidan<strong>

"…and then she fucking wrecked it. Can you believe that? I should've just killed her on the spot!" I nagged as I was pacing up and down my room, ignoring Kakuzu's glare. He was sitting on a chair near the window, his arms folded as he watched me closely, as if he was plotting to kill me. Which shouldn't really surprise me, but he should know by now it was impossible, so I continued ranting as if I didn't notice. "I mean, shit, that was the most valuable possession I had on me!"

"Then why _didn't _you kill her?" Kakuzu eventually asked, though still incredibly annoyed that I'd decided to bug him with this. I stopped pacing and stared at him, scratching the back of my head, trying to come up with an answer.

"I didn't feel like it." I answered him simply. He stared right back at me, obviously not buying it.

"Either you're telling the truth and you lost your mind, or you're lying to me." he concluded dully, and I glared at him.

"Oi, oi! I'm still sane, alright! Besides, I'm not a fucking liar! What could I gain by lying anyway? It's not like-"

"Shut up. You talk too much."

"You're fuckin' impossible, you know that, Kakuzu? Hey, I'm still talking to you! Stop ignoring me!"

"How could I ever ignore the infinitely talking, loudmouthed imbecile who's made it his personal goal to infuriate me every chance he gets?"

"Huh? What? Are we still talking about me?"

"You're a moron. Or you're avoiding the real problem by pretending that you're stupid. But personally I think you're a moron."

"Hey, weren't you the one saying _I _talked too much?"

"Shut up and get out before I dissect you."

Three seconds later I was standing outside of my own room, as I'd known he hadn't been kidding. _What an asshole! _I thought grumpily, and decided to go to the roof instead. As I walked past Sasori and Deidara's room I could hear another argument about some stupid art. Downstairs I heard Tobi yelling about something trivial like always, and I caught a glimpse of Leader who was in his own room, reading some book. They really were just a bunch of intolerant assholes. I mean, if I'd strictly followed the rules of my religion they would've been dead by now, considering officially I was supposed to kill all heathens. But I hadn't, and what do I get in return? An asshole partner who mocks my rituals and now this brat who ruined my amulet!

My hands were itching to kill something as I walked upstairs, as there was a ladder there that went up to the roof. I climbed up, getting out in the open air. It was evening and I could see a few stars here and there, spread out wide, sometimes being covered by a cloud who'd move in to obscure it. I couldn't find the moon, though, and lied down on my back, my hands under my head. I gritted my teeth as I wondered where the hell I'd find a new amulet. Maybe I should've picked the old one up to try and repair it. Whatever. I glared at the sky above me, as if it had done something wrong.

Then, I heard someone climbing up the ladder. _It had better not be who I think it is, because I really want to kill something right now. _

"Hidan?"

She was _so _screwed. The moment she got up on the roof I tackled her, and she let out a surprised yelp. I was on top of her, with both my hands around her neck.

"You really have a fucking death wish, huh?" I hissed. Suzan gasped for breath as she gazed at me with wide, surprised eyes. She dug her nails in my hands as she tried to speak, at the same time trying to kick me off. While I did have a firm grip on her, wasn't actually strangling her yet. I suddenly felt hesitant, which was a big fucking shock to me, I tell ya. I'd never felt hesitant to kill anyone before. I told myself it was because I'd get crap from Leader, and continued to glare down at her. She was so vulnerable at the moment. I could snap her neck easily with one hand, or I could make her suffer and play around before I killed her.

"I… f-fix… fixed… it…." she got out, and suddenly I noticed something shiny next to her. When I saw my amulet, completely repaired as if nothing had happened, my grip on her weakened and I let her neck go, though I was still on top of her. I picked up the amulet, taken aback by this sudden twist. She was panting underneath me, holding her neck. For a while I didn't really know what to say.

"Why'd you fix it?" I asked puzzled.

"I'll tell you if you get off me," she responded uncomfortably, and I let her go. She sat up right next to me, straightening her shirt. "Anyway, it seemed to mean a lot to you, so I thought, since I wrecked it I should repair it again. That's all." Suzan explained, staring up at the clouds. I studied it, but it looked as good as new. Contently, I put it around my neck after a quick prayer.

"Heh. You're okay, for a heathen."

"Is that a compliment?" she asked slowly. I raised my eyebrows.

"Yeah, I suppose so." I decided, leaning back on the roof onto my elbows. "You're really stupid though. I was ready to rip your head off back there," I lied, eyeing her to see her reaction. She seemed to look a little tired, and not very surprised.

"I guess I shouldn't have rushed up here, but I really wanted to give you that thing back."

"Why, though?" I questioned her curiously. No one had ever done something like that for me before. Maybe she'd just been scared that I'd come back and kill her off? _Yeah, that's probably it. _But her actual response was entirely different from what I'd imagined.

"Because, uh… I felt bad for wrecking it. It obviously was very important to you," she mumbled, avoiding my gaze.

"Really? That's why?" I asked a little flustered. She nodded, glancing at me reluctantly, and I sat up straight now. "Oh, I see. Seems like you actually like me after all." She blinked, almost a little panicked by that remark.

"Like you? No, I just felt guilty about that amulet, that's all." Suzan then lied to me. She would've pulled it off, if I hadn't seen the embarrassed look in her eyes just three seconds ago and I smirked widely.

"Sure, sure. Ya know, first I thought you hated my fucking guts or something, 'cause you often glared at me and stuff, but I guess not! Hey, you're a pretty nice person underneath all that bitchiness."

"What? I'm not… I'm not bitchy all the time!" she protested with a frown, folding her arms indignantly.

"Maybe if you were nicer to me more often, I could take it back," I stated, and she rolled her eyes with a sigh, but didn't respond. "Oh, I get it. You think just 'cause I slaughter my enemies I'm some kind of horrible person, right?"

"Do I have to answer that?" she responded scathingly, wiping a lock of hair out of her face.

"Hey, I can be a nice guy, alright?"

"When you're not trying to kill people, yeah, I suppose so." She touched the little horizontal scar on the middle of her neck I'd given her, and I rolled my eyes.

"You're still pissed about _that_? I didn't know it would leave a scar. Besides," I said, reaching over and touching it with my index finger "it's barely noticeable." She gave me a funny look and suddenly turned her head away. I was a little puzzled by this but didn't say anything, leaning back again. "Anyway, you should probably get inside," I said, noticing that she was shivering because of the cold wind.

"Oh? Suddenly concerned about me, are you?" she teased lightheartedly.

"No!" I exclaimed rather aggressively, "I just don't wanna get shit from Leader, alright? If you catch a cold up here it's gonna be _my_ goddamn fault. So just… get inside already." I grumbled, lying back down and staring straight up at the sky. I heard her chuckle and after a few seconds she descended down the ladder, leaving me alone on the roof. I don't know why, but I'd gotten really defensive. Was I actually starting to _care_ about that brat? _Naah, _I told myself, _I just don't wanna get shit from Leader if she gets sick. Yeah, that's it!_

* * *

><p><strong>Alexandria<strong>

"Ella?" I called, opening the door to her room. I found her sleeping, rolled up and the blankets pulled up to her chin. I decided to clean up her room a little so she wouldn't trip on the stuff that was on the ground when she woke up. I sighed when I was finally done, but then a glistening in the corner of my eye caught my attention. I walked over to it. It was a tiny, star-shaped diamond, about as big as the palm of my hand. Wait, was this the diamond they'd told me about? I quickly hurried downstairs, to the living room where most members usually hung out.

"Guys, I found the thing!" I announced, but they weren't listening to me. Playing video games again. "Hey! HELLO!" I said, waving the diamond around, finally getting their attention. "I said, I found the star thing!" Within about a minute, everyone was in the living room, standing around Pain who'd taken the star from me.

"Whatever power its emitting, it's not chakra." Itachi decided after having taken a long, good look at it.

"What a strange thing," Pain muttered, and then looked at Ella. "You said you wished us here, correct?" she nodded. "Then why are the other three members still missing?" Ella thought about it for a long time, before she eventually responded in a soft voice.

"I never really liked Zetsu, Kisame or Konan." she eventually answered. "Maybe that's why?"

"That would mean that this thing can look into your head. Creepy." I decided, though I was quite fascinated by the star. How did it work? Magic? Some super-advanced technology aliens dropped? Pain looked at Suzan.

"You said the old woman gave you three wishes. You used up two already. Which means there's only one left."

"So… what? You guys leave right now?" Suzan asked. Pain was silent for a moment.

"In theory, a space-time ninjutsu could bring us back as well. Then we wouldn't have to waste this third wish to get home." Pain said slowly.

"So you want to try and figure out how to get back on your own, and use the last wish there for whatever it is that you want?" I repeated, and he nodded. "That's smart, I mean, if you can figure out how to make your own portal."

"In any case, we need to hold onto this thing. No one is to wish anything, not even in your own thoughts, understand?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Fine.

"Yes sir!"

"Whatever."

I wondered what would happen if I did make another wish in my thoughts. Would I dare? I sighed and shook my head. There was too much risk involved. After all, I didn't want them to get stuck here forever. I then walked up to Suzan as most others returned to what they were doing previously.

"So, where did you say you met that old lady?" I asked curiously.

"In the mall, on a… Saturday, was it? Yeah. Saturday morning." she answered me, sitting down on the couch next to Kakuzu. "Why?"

"I just figured that maybe if you went to the mall again on a Saturday morning, alone, you might meet her."

"That would be… possible. Maybe she'd give me more wishes." Suzan contemplated. "Tomorrow is Saturday right? Ah, forget it. I'll just take the guys to the amusement park. We don't really need more wishes anyway," she stated nonchalantly, but I decided to go take a look tomorrow myself then. I asked Suzan for exactly where she'd met the old lady in the mall, and decided to go look for her myself.

She hadn't shown up when the Akaktsuki members had looked for her, but maybe I would get lucky.

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry I didn't update yesterday, by the way. I was SO tired when I came back from school, I didn't have energy to finish and post the chapter… :3<strong>

**ANYWAY, next chapter, YAY, RANDOM AMUSEMENT PARK! Oh, and the old lady hunt continues.**

**By the way****, I'm putting up a poll on which couple you'd like to see most in the story right on my profile, so plz check that out after you read this.**

**BIG THANKS TO **_**yyh-ygo-fma, Bookielovesanimeeee, RandomAwesomer101, Akatsuki's Bitch, Hanoone, The Ultimate Baka, Clumsy 0132, stateofemergency, Dust, Mahri, NAILxPOLISH, coccinelover, Happy Crying, RampageousLungi**_** and **_**Bree-Chan**_** for reviewing! You're awesome!**

**Reviews are appreciated! ^_^**


	11. Burn the witch!

'**Kay. First of all, some of you guys are like, mind-readers, 'cause you keep guessing shit that was supposed to be, you know SUPER MEGA ULTRA TOP SECRET CLASSIFIED INFORMATION.**

**Or maybe I'm just incredibly predictable? … T_T *cries in emo corner***

**Anywhore, I wrote this yesterday and finished editing it today, and it's kinda late, I know, but you know, school and all that jazz.**

**SO THIS CHAPTER IS THE LONGEST ONE YET! U HAPPIEZ?**

**Enjoy ^_^**

* * *

><p><strong>Alexandria<strong>

I felt sympathy for Suzan as she and Deidara, Kakuzu, Tobi and Hidan walked out the house, off to the amusement park with the guys who were dressed to try and look normal. Kakuzu had been forced to wear sunglasses and a hoodie over his head, and to say that he looked ridiculous was an understatement. I was trying not to burst out into giggles, as he glared fiercely at me. Or at least I think he was glaring, couldn't really tell with those shades. Sunglasses and Kakuzu? Epic win. Hidan had a black hat, hiding most of his hair, and Deidara had a different hairstyle, plus he'd put away his scope he'd usually had on his left eye. Tobi was the only one refusing to put away his mask, so he stood out the most, but I supposed they could pretend his face was disfigured. I wished Suzan luck, as she looked rather anxious and seemed to regret her decision.

"Do not kill anyone," Pain told Hidan sternly, who just rolled his eyes, but didn't complain.

"Have fun!" I said with a smirk, glad I'd decided to stay and go look for that old witch instead. They got in the car and drove off. I decided to grab a quick snack before I left to the mall as well, but then Pain stopped me. "What?" I asked.

"You want to go look for the old lady, is that right?" I nodded. "Good. But take Sasori with you."

"Wait, what? Why? I'll be fine on my own." I protested with a frown.

"That's not the point. If possible, I want to capture this woman. Her powers can be useful to us." Pain replied coolly, and I sighed, realizing there was no way to talk myself out of this one.

"Alright, then. Where is he?" I turned around and saw him walking off the stairs in simple dark blue jeans and a green vest. "Ready to go?" I asked, and he nodded, so we left the house after we'd put our shoes on.

The walk to the mall was a little awkward in the beginning to say the least. I wasn't that good in striking up a conversation, but I did want to talk, if it was just to make the awkwardness go away. But what was I going to ask him? What's your favorite color? I chuckled in myself, and he looked at me with that blank expression on his face. I started to feel really uneasy.

"So uh… what's up?" I wanted to smack myself for asking that lame of a question. Sasori kept staring at me.

"What's up?" he repeated slowly. "Is this your idea of an interesting conversation?" I heard the mocking tone in his voice and scratched the back of my head.

"I was just trying to be polite," I responded with a pout, my hands in the pockets of my wide jacket. "Besides, it was kinda getting… uhm, awkward."

"You don't like a silent walk?"

"Not with a stranger." He turned his head, and by now his blank expression was kind of freaking me out.

"I thought you girls practically knew everything about us?" he asked, and I could see a very slight frown on his face.

"Yeah, but, I mean… we never really got to actually talk to you in person. It's different."

"I see." he said, obviously not interested in talking anymore. We were nearing the mall now. I remembered Suzan's directions to the shoe shop where she'd met that old witch. I kept on walking, then suddenly noticed Sasori had stopped near a small art shop. I walked back to him, and saw that he was looking at a portrait of an old lady with (probably) her younger, much prettier daughter. It was painted in dark colors, mostly, and the pasty skin of the two women was the only thing that was a light color.

"Uh, Sasori, we should really move on. We can come take a look later." To be honest, I thought art was mostly stupid and boring. I mean, those "abstract" paintings that are supposed to be some kind of testament to the artist's great skill? What great skill would that be? The skill of being completely random and somehow still manage to create a boring piece? And honestly, making portraits nowadays was completely redundant. We had cameras now. Technology!

"You don't enjoy art, then?" He'd noticed the irritated undertone in my voice.

"Not really." I answered honestly as I continued walking and he followed me. "It never interested me."

"Why not?"

"How should I know? It just bores me, that's all." I said with a shrug. I'd rather not talk about art at this point.

"That's a rather simplistic view of things. I doubt you've even ever tried to understand it."

"Well pardon me for not admiring every random paint splatter on a canvas."

"Art doesn't only come in the form of paintings," Sasori stated, and I could tell he was getting annoyed with this conversation as well.

"Oh, right. For you it's your puppets, right?" I refrained from making a sarcastic remark about his puppets, though if I had to be honest his puppets and Deidara's clay were equally stupid, at least, in my opinion. Not like I'd ever tell the puppet master that. Instead I said, "I really couldn't care less. There are more important things in the world." He scoffed.

"Such as?"

"Friends and family, for example!"

"Friends come and go, and family isn't always a good thing to have." I was getting frustrated by now, and didn't watch where I was going. I bumped right into a smaller woman and she fell down on the ground. I nearly gasped when I saw that she was an elderly woman. Her grey hair was tied back in a knot, and she was wearing a blue flower dress with dark blue heels. She had a purple, leather purse, the one Suzan had described to me. This was her. This was the witch!

"Ah, I-I'm so sorry," I stuttered, shocked at how easily I'd found her. I helped her get up again, and picked up her bag for her which she'd dropped next to her.

"Why thank you, sweet girl," the elderly woman said with a wrinkly smile "now I understand you were looking for me?" There was a silence as I glanced at Sasori, unsurely. He seemed a little surprised as well, and looked back at me, nodding.

"Yeah, we actually were." I eventually said, deciding to tell her the truth. I now suddenly noticed that the mall looked completely deserted. There wasn't anyone in the near vicinity. No one in the shops either. This woman really was a witch or something.

"And why is that? I gave your friend her reward for helping me out. I have no further business with you." The warm smile on her face had suddenly disappeared, her voice turned cold. Okay, this was the point where I had no idea what to do next so of course Sasori decides to go ahead and,

"We've come to capture you." Yeah.

Of course grandma over there didn't take kindly to this statement. I took a few steps back, afraid for whatever she might pull off. I mean, she could do magic. What if she turned me into a frog or something? I'd later find out I'd been half right.

"How _ungrateful _you are!" she hissed, but her voice echoed through my head. It nearly hurt. "I gave you three wishes! Three! Do you know how many most people get? NONE! Then you _dare _to try and harm me?" I was ready to run now. "Oh, I'll teach you a lesson!" She suddenly directed her glare at me.

"A-ah… S-Sasori, maybe we should leave?" I said, as there was a sudden, rather hard wind blowing against me and my instincts told me something bad was going to happen.

"Don't be ridiculous. I'll take her out easily." he said, obviously not impressed by the elderly lady.

"Oh, you think so, little puppet man?" the grandma said in a sickeningly sweet voice, and I really felt like something terrible was going to happen. To me. Because she was glaring at me again. I don't know what I'd done to deserve that hate, considering Sasori was the one who'd told her she was going to get captured, but I was basically screwed.

She raised her right hand, and there was a bright, blinding, sudden flash of red light. I felt something very, very strange happening to my body. Suddenly I felt a lot smaller, and it felt like I was on my hands and feet on the ground. Then, suddenly my vision was obscured because of some sort of blanket thrown over me. I got out from under it. _Huh? Aren't those my clothes?_

"Don't worry sweetie, it'll only last for a day!" I stared up at her giant form. Or at least, she looked huge to me. I'd shrunk! What was she talking about, only lasting for a day? What would last for a day? The shrinking? Had she just turned me into a midget? I suddenly noticed my vision had become a lot sharper, and I was hearing a lot of noises. For instance, the sounds of flapping wings of birds high above me was loud and clear, which was incredibly strange since I didn't remember my hearing being this good. Then I looked down. And saw paws. Black paws, red fur, and I had a tail. Wait, what?

Before Sasori could even react the old witch disappeared into white smoke like a ninja (somewhere I thought she'd disappeared like that just to ridicule him). He emitted a loud sigh, before picking me up.

_Oh no, no, no, no! YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING! _I inwardly screamed as I'd realized what had happened to me while Sasori was carrying me back home. _Why did I have to go witch hunting? I should've just gone with Suzan to the amusement park or stayed at the house, but no, I just HAD to go look for that stupid old witch! AAARGH!_

"Stop squirming," Sasori ordered me, as I'd been clawing at his arm with my paws for a while now. He had my clothes in his other hand. I let out a loud yelp, which startled me, and made me cry even more. I really had turned into an animal. Was I like a dog or something? I growled, getting frustrated with all of this. "You heard the witch. It's only for a day." If this was his way of trying to console me, it wasn't working. I growled some more, trying to get out from his grip. I may have been degraded to a mere animal, but I could walk for myself. It took a while for him to understand this message and he promptly dropped me on the ground.

_Next time I go look for that witch I'm bringing a gun, _I thought scornfully as I walked next to him. Suddenly people began to reappear on the streets again and were staring at me weirdly as I seemed to be following Sasori. A small child even tried to play with me, though their mother quickly pulled me away.

"No, Jason! You'll get dirty!" she scolded her son, and I glared at her. _Excuse me, but dogs are more hygienic than humans, _I thought annoyed, and continued to follow after Sasori. _Well, at least it's better than being a frog, right? Yeah, I should be positive! At least I can bite people when they annoy me, or something. _

When we finally got home, Sasori explained what had happened to me to Pain and everyone else.

"I see. She mustn't be underestimated from now on." Pain said. _Why thank you, Captain Obvious, _I thought annoyed, as I looked up at Ella who seemed to be somewhat amused. I let out a loud whine, and she smiled apologetically.

"I'm sorry, Foxy, you just look so cute," she said, picking me up and patting me on the head. Wait, Foxy? So I was a fox now? I wiggled around a little, not liking that I was being picked up and held again. "So you said this would only last for a day?" Ella asked, looking at Pain. He nodded. "Oh, that's not so bad." she said softly. She eventually put me back down after having petted me (which felt pretty nice, though I was getting annoyed) for a while. She then left again, probably to hang out in the backyard. It seemed to be her favorite spot.

Me? I just decided to go take a nap or something. I could go do something exciting like hunt for mice, but I was a little too tired for that.

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

Going to an amusement park with hundreds of people visiting it together with four deadly criminals. Oh joy. The guys certainly seemed interested in the several different rides though. The park had about four different rollercoaster rides, a haunted house and other stuff I couldn't really remember at the moment. Of course they didn't really like the fact that it was so busy but it was a Saturday in vacation time so it was logical there would be lots of other people visiting. We'd gone out rather early though, so despite the waiting lines, I thought we'd manage to get in most of the rides.

"Hey, what's that?" Deidara asked, pointing to a water ride.

"We should probably go in that one last. Don't wanna walk around with wet clothes all day." I decided, not even really answering his question and looked around. "What about that one?" I suggested, pointing at a nearby rollercoaster. It was a small one, but the fastest one in the park.

"Yay! Let's go there!" Before I could even react, I was being dragged away by Tobi to the line. The others followed behind me, and I tried to get free.

"I can walk on my own, Tobi!" I huffed. The line was a little shorter than usual so there was just about ten minutes waiting time. When it was finally our turn Tobi of course nearly shoved me on the seat and sat down next to me, getting weird looks from the people around him. At the same time, Hidan waited for Deidara to take a seat. For a second there, I thought Hidan was actually being polite, until he sneered,

"Ladies first." Typical.

"Fuck you, yeah!"

"Guys… please don't make a scene," I nearly begged. Instead Kakuzu sat down first, glaring at Hidan as if he was daring him to say something. He didn't, this time. So, me and Tobi were at the front, behind us Kakuzu and Hidan, and behind them was Deidara. A girl with blonde curls sat down next to him with a smile. I watched curiously.

"Hi!" she said cheerfully. Deidara stared at her suspiciously as if she were some sort of spy or something.

"Hello."

"My name's Sarah, nice to meet you."

"Right. I'm Dei- eh… I mean, I'm… Don." I burst out in laughter, and I could hear him sigh annoyed. The blonde seemed to ignore it though.

"That's a really cool name, it really suits you too. Oh, I like your hair! How do you get it so smooth?" The girl continued chatting with him and trying to flirt, but Deidara wasn't interested in the least. I glanced back over my shoulder and saw that Kakuzu had pulled off his sunglasses and was glaring at the back of Tobi's head, probably getting incredibly annoyed by the girl's babbling. Eventually he turned around and looked at her.

"Shut up." he snapped. The girl went pale from horror at seeing his eyes and I laughed my ass off as I pulled down the harness, fastening my seat belt as well. Deidara chuckled when the blonde kept gaping at Kakuzu even when the man had turned around again and was sitting normally in his seat, probably regretting ever coming with us. I looked at Tobi, who'd done the same and was nearly bouncing in his seat and had been talking the entire time to no one in particular.

"When is it gonna start? When is it gonna start? Aw, I wanna go already! What's taking them so long? When is it-"

"-Tobi, I swear to fucking all that is Jashin, I will slit your throat if you don't SHUT UP!"

"But, but, but, but…. OH! IT'S STARTING!" he interrupted his own pouting when the coaster finally started to ride. It went up, nearly completely vertically, and stopped at the very edge. My heart was pounding by now and I was staring at the view, grabbing my harness and holding it tightly. Nearly the entire park was visible, though there were rollercoaster which were a lot higher.

"Hey, is this all, yeah? How boring! Wha-aaaaaaaaaah! THE FUCK?" I heard Deidara screech when the coaster suddenly shot forward, down so fast my vision started to blur. I screamed, most other passengers screamed as well, and then Tobi decided to out-scream us all.

"OH MY GOD THIS IS GOING SO FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

"SHUT UP, TOBI!"

"-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

"Oh, Jesus Christ,"

"-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAST!"

"WHAT THE FUCK? They couldn't have given us a fucking warning? I HIT MY FUCKING HEAD!" Hidan complained behind me. The only person who was completely quiet was Kakuzu. For a moment I thought he'd been impressed. Then I managed to look over my shoulder and he was looking rather bored. Of course that didn't stop Hidan from talking to him. "Oi, Kakuzu! You look like you're dead or something. At least enjoy the damn ride while it lasts! Hey, are you listening to me, Kakuzu? Dammit, stop ignoring me, you asshole!"

Sarah was completely silent.

Then the ride was over and she was the first to get out. I smirked widely at Deidara, who just rolled his eyes, obviously not very amused. "Man, she was totally coming onto you!" I said playfully. "You should've made a move or something."

"What are you, a matchmaker? I'm not interested in a girlfriend, yeah." Deidara responded calmly.

"Because he's gay," Hidan chimed in.

"You SHUT UP!" We walked down from the ride and Tobi was almost literally jumping up and down.

"Again, again, again! That was so much fun!" he nearly squealed, and I sighed. "Well, Suzan-chan? Can we go again? Pretty please with a cherry on top?"

"There are plenty of other rides," I answered as I walked towards the second rollercoaster. Unfortunately, Tobi had other plans.

"Oooh, what's that?"

The Love Boat?

OH FUCK NO.

"Tobi, I really don't want- hey! HEY! THIS IS KIDNAPPING!" I yelped, when he suddenly lifted me over his shoulder and running towards the ride like a maniac. I could see the others follow, though Kakuzu was entirely indifferent to my pain (asshole) and Deidara and Hidan were too busy arguing to even care. We stood in line, and I really got uncomfortable when seeing the love-smitten couples in front of us. Kakuzu stared. Then he looked at me.

"I'm not going on there." he decided, and by the harsh tone in his voice I could tell there was no convincing him. Not that I wanted to convince him anyway.

"Yeah, me too. You guys can- TOBI! Put me down already, _please_?"

"Sorry, Suzan-chan!"

"Ow," I huffed when he promptly dropped me and I landed down on my ass. How polite of him. Why had I been putting up with these jerks again? Oh right, otherwise they'd kill me. Though, to be completely honest, it wasn't _that _bad. Well, it had been in the beginning, but now it was okay. For one, I had established Deidara was a cool guy, and Hidan had more to him than just the crazy blood rituals and Jashinism. I had learned that Itachi really just rather not talk, Pain never was in the mood to talk and Kakuzu just downright hated talking. The only one that really freaked me out though was Tobi. God knew what went on in his mind or whatever he was plotting next.

It was our turn to get in the boat.

"So, what's this ride about?" Hidan asked, and I wondered if he was being intentionally this dense or that he just really couldn't tell.

"It's called the Love Boat, dumbass. What do you think it is, yeah?" Deidara scoffed, pointing at the gigantic, pink neon-letters above them and Hidan blinked a few times.

"Oh. Wait, the fuck? I don't wanna go in here!"

"Too late!" Tobi suddenly shoved him and Deidara on the boat.

"HEY! THE HELL?" Deidara yelped, but before either of them could even react the boat left. The two of 'em, one a religious nut and the other a suicide bomber, left in the Love Boat.

I… laughed so hard, so hard I was afraid I'd run out of air.

Then Tobi shoved me on the next boat and I stopped laughing. No, no, no, no! NOT WITH THIS GUY! But it was too late. The boat left with me and the evil dude were being drifted off into the Love Tunnel thing. I gulped, taking as much distance as I could in the tiny, pink seat. I could see his Sharingan seeming to be glowing in the dark tunnel that was only lit up by some stupid, pink and red lights to set a "romantic" sphere. He looked at me for a while, then chuckled.

"Why so nervous?" he said in his normal voice, which sent chills down my spine. He raised his hands. "I won't do anything. You're way too young for me."

"Do you… enjoy scaring the living crap out of others?" I asked dryly, feeling sweat rolling off my forehead as I tried not to look at him.

"Hmm, it can be amusing from time to time." He relaxed in his seat, while I was just so tense, and he seemed to find that entertaining. "I'm wondering, how did you and Ella meet? You're obviously not related."

"Why do you care?" I asked with a frown.

"Small talk. Humor me."

"Fine. Let me start by saying that my parents are the most indifferent people on earth, then." He eyed me curiously, which just made me more nervous. "I-in any case, it's not like I had a bad childhood. It was actually quite boring and incredibly average. My parents weren't very interested in my life at all. My dad was always busy with his work and my mother with her friends. One of her closest friends was Ella's mother,"

"Is this story going anywhere exciting?" Tobi interrupted.

"It will if you let me talk," I responded, irritated. "So one day, I just felt like letting loose. I was about fourteen then and I'd had enough of the normalness in my life. So, I got in touch with the wrong people, did some bad stuff and ran away from home."

"Bad stuff? Such as?"

"Stealing, smoking joints, skipping school, things like that." He snorted.

"You call _that _bad?"

"Yeah, I know it's not the same thing as killing your entire clan," I huffed, referencing Itachi, "but this world is different. In any case, mother couldn't keep her mouth shut about it and told Ella's mom, who then suggested me and Ella should hang out together, as she'd be a good influence on me. Turns out, they were right.

"I'd known Ella before then as well, just not as good. We starting talking a lot more, and getting to know each other better, eventually becoming best friends. When I turned eighteen I moved in with Ella immediately. And that's about it. That's the whole story."

There was a silence as we were nearing the exit of the tunnel.

"That was incredibly boring. So, I assume you and your parents have a rather bad relationship?" He asked, and I ignored his first comment as I answered him.

"We have _no _relationship. They're basically strangers to me." I shrugged. "To be honest, I don't think I'd be devastated at all if they both suddenly died. I'd be sad for a day or two, but that's about it." Tobi hummed for a while, before he said something again.

"Interesting. You know, I did happen to hear from Deidara how calm you were in the beginning, when Hidan killed those three people in the mall. Now you're telling me you don't care about your parents. I'd almost think you completely lacked empathy." I froze, replaying the scene in the car in my head. True, I had been remarkable clear-headed, but, hadn't that been because I didn't realize the seriousness of the situation? I might come off as indifferent to other people, but I'd never thought myself as lacking in empathy.

"No, no! I cried afterwards, in my room." I protested.

"Is that so? Why?"

"Because… well, because of the shock. Because… at the time I kind of thought it was all my fault."

"I see. So you cried because this was a stain on your otherwise clean slate. Not because those guards were actually _dead._" Tobi noted and I could swear I heard my heart stop. Was he right? Did I really lack that much empathy? Was I that uncaring? He chuckled in a low tone. "Face it, girl. You're not as warm and loving as Ella, I can see it in your eyes. You don't care what happens to other people. With that in mind, you'd make a good ninja."

The boat got out the tunnel, and Tobi returned to being goofy, as he got out, nearly being pummeled by a furious Hidan and Deidara screaming at him.

Meanwhile, I was petrified on my seat, until Tobi had to drag me out the boat. All this time I'd thought of myself as just as kind as Ella. I mean, maybe not as loving, but I did care about others. At least that's what I liked to think. Either way, one thing was certain, while I was having an identity crisis.

Tobi really did love to screw with people's heads.

* * *

><p><strong>Deidara<strong>

I hate Tobi. I _hate _Tobi. I HATE Tobi. Did I mention I hate Tobi, yet? That boat ride was the most awkward and gayest moment in my life. Oh I was so going to blow that annoying son of bitch to hell when I got out. In the meanwhile, Hidan loudly complained about how boring the ride was and thinking up at least a fifty different ways to kill Tobi, to which I contributed every once in a while. I mean, if I'd even had a choice obviously I would've chosen to go with Suzan as that wasn't completely gay. Not that I'm homophobic, but situations like this get really embarrassing.

"Is this supposed to be romantic or something? Staring at naked babies with wings? Ain't that like pedophilia?"

"Aren't those supposed to be angels, yeah?"

"I don't fucking care! They're naked and they're kids, who just happened to have little fluffy wings. It's weird as hell. I'd bet Orochimaru would have loved this ride though, creepy bastard," Hidan commented dryly. I sighed, rubbing my temples.

"Damn. I should've gotten off and jumped in the boat with Suzan." I muttered, though mostly to myself, when the Jashinist then glared at me for some reason, which frustrated me.

"What?"

"Nothing,"

"You're glaring at me."

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are!" I folded my arms, getting really annoyed by this guy. "The hell did I ever do to you, yeah?" I asked him, returning his glare gladly. He rolled his eyes.

"For one, you exist. Secondly, your face is just pissing me off lately." I blinked, a little startled.

"Why?"

"How should I know? It just fuckin' does."

"Dude, fine, whatever yeah. If you ask me you just love hating people."

"Shut up." I leaned back in the seat, wondering when I'd finally be able to get back home. Though it was a little sad though. I doubted I'd find any nice girls I could chat with back in my world like I did here with Suzan, mostly. Ella was cool too, but her personality kind of bored me so I didn't speak to her much. That other girl didn't really interest me either. I glanced over at Hidan who was now just staring at the statues with people kissing, and he seemed rather annoyed by it all.

"Don't like romance much, do you?" I remarked.

"No shit," he sneered, "do I look like the lovey-dovey type to you?"

"Do you have to be an asshole every time we talk?"

"If you didn't ask me stupid questions I wouldn't have to be an asshole."

"Hey! Everyone has a secret side, yeah. Eh, almost everyone. Apparently you're exactly what you look like," I derided him with a smirk, putting my hands behind my head as I relaxed a little more.

"What do I look like to you then?"

"A crazy, religious smartass who doesn't know when to shut up."

"Still beats being a suicide bomber-"

"Shut the hell up, yeah! At least I died on my own damn accord, you got your head blown off, dipshit!"

"Say that again, you fuckin' punk!"

We kept arguing until the ride finished. Even then we kept arguing, and Kakuzu dragged us out, obviously getting pissed at our constant screaming at each other. Eventually I noticed that Suzan and Tobi were done with their ride as well. I interrupted my shouting for a second to look at Suzan, who looked like she'd seen a ghost. She was almost as pale as Ella now.

"You okay?" I asked, and she glanced at me, a little startled by my sudden question.

"Y-yeah, I'm alright. Let's just move on," she mumbled, fidgeting with the buttons on her shirt. She definitely looked everything but alright. Even the most boneheaded guy noticed she wasn't looking alright.

"Oi, just to be clear, if you faint, I ain't carrying you."

"Oh, well thanks for your concern," she replied sarcastically. Hidan flashed his smirk at her and she rolled her eyes, though the corners of her mouth pulled up in a small smile for just a split second. She took us to a haunted house, and I noticed she was trying to stay away from Tobi as much as possible. Had that idiot done something to scare her in the tunnel? We stood in the line for the haunted house, and eventually got to go in. Kakuzu as well, as he seemed to be a little curious.

It didn't really turn out to be much. For me, at least. Maybe Suzan shouldn't have gone in with her current state, seeing as she was stunned very easily and shrieked every time something popped up as we walked through it and grabbed my arm. Eventually I got tired of it.

"Alright, what happened in that tunnel, yeah?" I asked, softly so that only she could hear it. Suzan blinked, staring at me with wide eyes for a while as if she hadn't understood my question. "I'm not blind. It's obvious something in there scared the shit out of you." She laughed nervously.

"Don't be silly, I'm just feeling a little sick, that's all." She tried to play it off, and she did it well, but she looked too pale, plus, her hands were nearly squeezing the life out of my arm.

"Yeah, and I'm the Hokage. Seriously, what happened?"

"It's… it's really personal." she eventually stated apologetically. I frowned, not satisfied with that answer as I was really curious, but I decided not to push her too hard, so I just shrugged.

"Okay, then. I won't ask again, yeah." She seemed surprised by this, and I noticed she was still holding onto my arm as we walked through a dark, cobweb-filled corridor. Then she smiled happily.

"Thanks," Huh, she looked pretty cute when she smiled. She should do it more often. I looked at Kakuzu, who seemed bored as ever, and Tobi, who jumped and yelped every five seconds or so. Hidan's left eye was twitching, meaning he really was contemplating to try and kill Tobi. On one hand I feel like cheering them on, on the other I really couldn't care less.

"OH JESUS!" Suzan shrieked when suddenly a large, though fake, spider fell down from the ceiling and dangled right in front of her. She hugged my arm like it was a lifeline, and I chuckled. Seems like she was cute when she was scared as well.

"Oi, I just noticed something," Hidan loudly commented as he pushed a fake spider away "You keep saying the name of this Jesus dude. Who's this guy?" Holy shit, the bonehead had noticed something I hadn't? Well, damn.

"Well, it's a religious uhm… figure." Oh god, she said "religious".

"What religion?" Hidan asked.

"Christianity."

"The fuck is that about?" Suzan took a deep breath and began explaining about some old dudes that had written a Holy Book or something, and then there was that Jesus guy. The only thing I remember after her lengthy explanation was that he could walk on water and turn water into wine.

"So he's a ninja?" I asked. How else would someone walk on water? You'd need chakra for that, right? But she shook her head.

"No, he's the son of God, and apparently he died for everyone's sins." Hidan snorted.

"Lame! I could kill that guy with two hands tied on my back."

"He's already dead."

"Yeah whatever, you get the point. Ha! Son of God my ass!" Suzan sighed.

"That's not really the point though. He's- OH FUCK!" She screamed when a guy in a creepy costume jumped out from around a corner, nearly jumping in my arms, and I chuckled lightly at this. Then Hidan, who'd been complaining about those costumed people before, stood right in front of the guy and made the scariest face he could. Believe me when I say it was scary as _fuck. _

"I'M GONNA EAT YOUR FACE!" he screamed like a murderous maniac.

"HOLY SHIT!" The poor man, completely startled by this, fell down on the ground, then got up and ran away, scared shitless and Hidan roared with laughter. Suzan tried to cover up her giggles, and Tobi laughed openly with him. I was slightly amused, and I noticed Kakuzu just rolled his eyes and continued walking. The guy had no sense of humor.

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

I'd been in the living room on my own, staring at a chess table which was standing near the corner of the room. Suzan had bought it. She played chess a lot with Alexandria, and had taught me how to play as well. I played against her every now and then, and it appeared I'd had a hidden talent for chess. After winning five consecutive times, Suzan had just given up and decided never to play against me again. She could be childish like that, sometimes. Apparently according to most people, if you were really good in chess you were highly intelligent. If that was really true, then I'd like someone to explain to me why I lost against Suzan in every single debate. I felt like playing it now, and as if he'd read my thoughts, Itachi walked into the living room, glancing from me to the chess board. Sasori was up on the roof, Pain was in his own room, Kakashi was grabbing a snack from the kitchen. Alex was still sleeping on the couch, right next to me.

"Do you want to play?" Itachi unexpectedly asked me. I was a little startled by this in the beginning, but I accepted nonetheless. I realized he didn't really have this kind of chess in his world, so as we sat down at the chess table, I gave him a quick run through of what was what, and he grasped it immediately. Of course, being a genius and all. We started playing, and after four minutes he seemed a little, er, surprised. I could just barely tell from his expression.

"Is something the matter?" I asked unsurely. He slowly shook his head, continuing to play. After about another minute, he said,

"I didn't expect you to be this good." I smiled slightly.

"Thank you for the compliment." Chess was, next to cooking, another thing I was really good at, from the few things I could do well. I remember when I'd tried to teach Eva how to play chess. _She was never interested though. _I started to feel gloomy again so I tried to push that thought away for the sake of the game, at least. I noticed Itachi then suddenly started playing at a much higher level, which meant he'd held back for me in the beginning. _How sweet of him, _I thought. Both our queens were out by now, and there were only a few pieces left on both sides. We reached a stale mate.

"Hmm, another round?"

"Very well." This time he beat me. I sighed and he looked at me questioningly.

"You're the first person to win from me." I answered his stare.

"I see. You're an excellent player." This made me blush slightly, considering who it was that was telling me that. I really hadn't expected that one coming out of Itachi's mouth. Then Kakashi walked in, and decided to watch our third match. I'd already told him what our chess was like, as he'd been curious to know earlier though he'd said he didn't feel like playing. I lost again, of course. But I won the next round, which was a small victory as I lost the round after that one again. One draw, three losses, one win. That wasn't too bad, considering who I was playing against. The game took my mind off… well, you know.

"Mind if I play against him?" Kakashi then asked me, and I didn't mind at all. In fact I was actually rather curious as to who'd win between the two of them. I stood up and let him take my place. After a good thirty minutes the eventual score was four losses for Itachi, and two losses for Kakashi, one stale mate. Then Alex woke up. I decided to check up on her as the two men continued playing. She blinked slowly, yawning, and stretching her paws. Then she did something that resembles a sigh.

"It's just for a day, Lex." I tried to comfort her, but she just growled and jumped off the couch, walking around the room probably looking for something to do.

"Ella, do you want to play against me now?" Kakashi asked, and I nodded. Itachi stood up, pulling out the chair for me and pushing it back when I sat back down.

"Thank you," I said, a little surprised at the gesture.

"A true gentleman, huh?" Kakashi noted amused, but Itachi didn't respond. He watched our first match, which I won. "Ah, you really are pretty good." Kakashi said a little impressed.

"Of course I am," I joked lightly "Though you're not too bad yourself. Give it a few more years and you might beat me." He chuckled.

"Is that so?" The next two matches Kakashi won. "Few more years, huh?" I figured he was smirking at me now and just smiled back, finally having found something nice to do that didn't constantly remind me of my… dead relatives. And just as we were about to start our fourth match, I heard a loud ripping noise coming from above and looked up, gasping when I saw that damned black portal again on my ceiling.

"Oh, that can't be good." Sasori noted dryly when he walked downstairs, staring at the vortex, or whatever it was. Instead of a person dropping out, a little note fell down. Alex was nearly scratching my feet below me as I'd caught the note. It was written in a curly handwriting. I read it aloud.

"_I figured I should drop you kids a little present, as you seem to keep wanting more from me. So, if you want more, you'll get more! Love, the senile old lady._" I paled, and it was eerily quiet in the room. Then there was shouting coming from the portal. I didn't recognize it, but Itachi obviously did because his eyes widened in complete shock, which should've been a clear indicator as to who was falling down.

Oh yes. The messy boy that fell down on the couch with an Akatsuki robe on was none other than Sasuke Uchiha.

* * *

><p><strong>JESUS. THIS TOOK SO LONG!<strong>

**Anyhow, there you go. Extra long chapter. Hope you are satisfied!**

**Also, the poll is still up on my profile for the people that didn't vote yet, I think I'll keep it up until I upload the next chapter, which will probably be tomorrow. So far, most people seem to prefer SuzanxHidan and EllaxItachi. Let's see if it will change or not :3**

**BIG THANKS TO **_**Hanoone, ktizle13, coccinelover, yyh-ygo-fma, Clumsy0132, Bookielovesanimeeee, Dust, The Ultimate Baka, RampageousLungi, Logarythm, Deidara's Dragon, Otaku-chama, NAILxPOLISH, Akatsuki's Bitch, Bree-Chan, Mahri, Random, TheLightestShadow **_**and **_**RandomAwesomer101**_

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	12. Confused little brothers

**Well, poll results so far show that most people greatly favor EllaxItachi and generally favor SuzanxHidan. **

**Anyway, here's the next chapter and OH MY GOD I HAVE SO MANY REVIEWS. Holy shitballs.**

**This is going to contain a little less comedy because duh. Sasuke. 'Nuff said. **

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* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

"TOBI! STOP THAT!" I shrieked, as we were sitting in a passenger car in a large Ferris wheel. He was trying to make it swing back and forth. Of course the other guys weren't as nervous as I was, because they were freaking ninjas, but I wasn't about to let myself fall to my death because of that jerk.

"Stop what?" he cocked his head to the right as if he had no idea what I was talking about. Meanwhile I was clinging to my seat as I didn't want to fall off, so I turned to Kakuzu.

"Weren't you supposed to babysit us? Well, do something about that guy!" I said, pointing at Tobi.

"Hey, I'm not being babysat by anyone!" Hidan interrupted immediately.

"Could you… please… stop being so belligerent for like five goddamn seconds?" I spat, really starting to get pissed off. I mean geez, Tobi had decided to mess with my head and Hidan had decided to argue about every little detail, not to mention Kakuzu wasn't helping at all nor was Deidara who gladly argued back to Hidan. I sighed, putting a hand on my forehead.

"Tobi, stop that." Kakuzu grumbled, and so he did eventually stop, thank God. Now I could enjoy the view in peace, but the Ferris wheel was going down again so I only had ten seconds to look before most of the wide view shrunk and I scowled disappointedly. Though, that was kind of the least of what was on my mind at the moment. I glanced at Tobi, who was now being strangled by Deidara for the nth time. I'd always thought of myself as a strong person, emotionally. But what he'd said had really messed my head up good.

But I couldn't let him get to me that easily, right? Though a part of me was starting to think he was right, the other part was still skeptical. I did have people I cared about. I mean, yes, it might be kind of pathetic that the person I loved the most was Ella, and not in _that _way. She was like my big sis, and I couldn't imagine what I'd do without her. So, perhaps I was indifferent to strangers or people who hadn't earned my respect, but I certainly wasn't cold towards the few loved ones I had. I suppose, if I had to be completely honest, I didn't care for one bit about those unknown people dying in the wars, didn't matter whether they were rich, poor, young, old, mothers, fathers, children, it made no difference to me.

I guess that did make me a lot colder and uncaring than your average person. _It is what it is, _I thought. There was no point in denying who I was. Still bugged me a little, though. I mean, I'd never realized this aspect about me. It really did change the image I'd previously had of myself. Frankly, the image of "sarcastic intellectual" had changed into "coldhearted bitch" which was a _real _drastic change.

"Alright, so what's next, yeah?" Deidara asked me as we all walked off the ride. It was near closing time so we would be able to visit one last ride. I pulled the little map of the park out of my back pocket and stared at the different rides and where they were located.

"We could go on one last rollercoaster ride. It's the highest one." I stated, pointing at the green ride which towered out above all the others.

"Yay! Let's go there!" Of course I was being dragged away again by that masked asshole, and the others followed calmly. We were then standing in the line, which wasn't all that long, considering most people picked the water rides as last or already started to leave. Behind us a group of loud, teenage boys joined the line. They couldn't be much younger than me, probably around sixteen. One of them was drinking from a beer can and the other three were chatting loudly and laughing. The one who was drinking seemed rather drunk already. I didn't feel very comfortable standing right in front of a guy who reeked of alcohol, but I wasn't about to squeeze myself in between Hidan and Kakuzu just to get away.

Then, one of them whistled. I ignored it at first, thinking it wasn't directed at me, but it was. "Hey baby, nice legs!" I rolled my eyes. Teenagers, right? I mean, I know I'm just nineteen, but still, that counts as being an adult. I'd just so happened to be wearing a blue dress that was just a little over my knees, and to any adult man it would've been nothing to be impressed about but these were hormone filled kids we were talking about. So I kept ignoring them. They wanted attention, after all, and I wasn't about to give it to them.

"Bro, she's totally dissing you man." I heard one of them say to their friend, as if to encourage him to talk to me again.

"Hey babe, I'm talking to you! Turn around and let me see that pretty face!" I was getting agitated by now as I realized it was the guy who had the alcohol stench all over him. Meanwhile both Hidan and Kakuzu glanced over their shoulders to look at the boys. Deidara peeked in between them and Tobi was doing lord knows what. Probably still eavesdropping though. Anyway, the best strategy for me now was to keep ignoring them. Usually, they would've given up. But in my oh so brilliant calculations I'd forgotten to take with me the fact that he was drunk. And drunk people tended to be pretty aggressive.

"I said turn around!" he repeated loudly and rather obnoxiously. Then he actually grabbed my shoulder and spun me around, though he let go after that. He smirked widely, and I noticed he had bloodshot eyes. Either sleep-deprivation or pot. But I put my bet on sleep-deprivation, considering stoned people tended to be pretty laid back and quiet.

"Don't touch me, I have nothing to say to you." I snapped harshly, glaring at him. He reminded me of my first ex, though just a little. The demanding tone in which he spoke and the way he smirked were similar. With having said that, I turned my back on him again, and looked at Hidan, Kakuzu and Deidara who'd been watching with both interest and alertness. _They probably expected something to happen. Luckily it didn't, _I thought, but just as that crossed my mind, something actually _did _happen.

The guy actually squeezed my ass. His friends emitted loud gasps and were cheering him on, but I'd instantly turned furious. I spun around faster than the drunk could follow and slapped him with the back of my hand as hard as I could. The bastard didn't deserve the palm of my hand on his face. The sound of a loud smack was clearly heard by everyone in the direct environment, and I watched his cheek slowly turn red. Now I took a step back.

"The fuck do you think you're doing you bitch?" One of his friends immediately shouted, but then the drunk decided to retaliate angrily as he reached for my arm. Then he got punched in the face. Hard. I watched the drunk literally fly into one of his friends and both of them falling on the ground, rolling back. Who was my savior? Well, it was Kakuzu. I had _not _expected that, so I just gaped at him until he finally answered my confused and shocked stare.

"I needed to vent my frustration one way or another." he said dully, and I couldn't help but smirk at that. But of course the other boys didn't really like what was happening at all. Of course, being the sissies they were one of them suddenly punched me instead of having the guts to attack Kakuzu. I was hit against my nose and I stumbled back, gasping as I'd been completely taken by surprise. _That hurts like fucking hell! _I thought as Deidara caught me before I fell down. I held my nose, and felt blood seep out of my nostrils and on my lips. Deidara was supporting me now, and I then watched Hidan grab the guy who punched me by his hair and knee him in the face. _Oh SHIT! _One look at the guy's nose and I could tell it was really broken, and his lips were busted. He fell down on his back on the ground.

"Tch, fucking cowards!" Hidan snarled, clearly pissed off. I blinked, and suddenly appreciated him a lot more. I mean, he did stood up for me, which was pretty sweet of him all things considered, and not something I would've expected. Though I assumed it was mostly because he liked fighting, I still felt grateful.

"Jesus," I managed to stand on my own again. One of the other boys kneeled down near his injured friend as the others leaned over the drunk who'd passed out on the ground.

"OH NO!" Tobi screamed out of nowhere. "Suzan-chan is bleeding!" he exclaimed, pointing oh so obviously at my nose. Deidara nearly slapped away my hands which had been protectively around my nose, and inspected it.

"Well, it doesn't look broken, yeah." The other people in the line had been watching now, and a nice lady offered me a few tissues for my nose which I gratefully accepted. I first pinched my nose carefully, as I knew that would usually help stop the bleeding, and wiped the blood on my face away with the tissues.

"We should probably leave." I said, and the guys mostly agreed with me. The teenage boys weren't paying me any attention any more as they were fussing over their friends and we walked out of the line before an employee got here and started asking us troublesome questions.

We decided to leave the amusement park as well. Tobi kept asking me questions about how I was feeling and I knew he was doing it just to annoy me so I should try not to get annoyed, but I got annoyed anyway because Tobi is an asshole and he can annoy even the most patient person on earth.

"Did the bleeding stop yet?" Deidara asked as we were walking to our car, and I nodded, having released my nose for a few seconds now and there was no more blood. It still hurt but at least had stopped bleeding and it wasn't broken. I grinned playfully.

"Concerned about me?" He rolled his eyes, a little embarrassed, and looked away. "If I didn't know any better I'd say you wanted to be friends."

"Oi, just 'cause I may be an S-ranked criminal doesn't mean I can't have friends!"

"Woah, Deidara, you wanna be friends with me?" I asked, raising my eyebrows in surprise.

"Hey, I didn't say that, yeah! Don't get any weird ideas or anything." he protested awkwardly and I chuckled amused.

"This guy having friends? He'd sooner blow people to hell than befriend them!" Hidan mocked him as he glared, and Deidara glared back.

"As if you're misted popular. You don't have any friends either! At least I can get along with my partner, yeah!"

"Whatever you say, _Don_."

"Shut up! It's all because of those stupid soap operas I chose that shitty name, yeah!"

"Not the point! The point here is that you don't have any friends because I doubt anyone would want to be!" I now frowned and interrupted their conversation.

"I'd actually like to be friends with Deidara, you know?" This clearly shocked both of them, but I was honest. He was a pretty cool guy and I liked talking to him. Then Deidara smirked at Hidan.

"Ha!" He stuck out his tongue as Hidan looked at him as if he wanted the blonde to implode on the spot. "Now who's the friendless guy, huh?"

"Uhm," I quickly said, wanting to prevent a fight "I wouldn't mind being friends with Hidan either." Somehow I felt a little… awkward stating that. It didn't sound right.

"What? WHY?" Deidara exclaimed, clearly puzzled as to why I'd said that. It had been mostly to keep Hidan from seriously attacking Deidara, but I supposed I really didn't mind. As long as I didn't seriously piss the Jashinist off it could work.

"I agree. Why?" Kakuzu then chimed in.

"Yeah, yeah! Tobi wants to know why, too!"

All four of them stared at me, and I felt my cheeks heat up and turn red. "Because uh… because… just because, alright?" I huffed in frustration, not sure how to answer that question. "I mean, why _not_? There are worse things in life than being friends with Hidan, right?"

There was a short silence.

"Nope."

"Not really."

"Tobi thinks not."

"You're all assholes!" Hidan yelled irately, and I couldn't help but giggle.

* * *

><p><strong>Itachi<strong>

I felt horrified. At first, I'd expected to see my younger brother looking like how he'd looked the last time I'd seen him. But he seemed older, as he was taller and his face had matured more, plus his voice had deepened a little. But those changes weren't the first thing I noticed. It was the _cloak. _There was no possible way that Pain would accept him in the Akatsuki, so I could only assume this was Tobi's work. It meant that Pain wasn't the one dishing out orders anymore, and it also meant Sasuke had broken free of Orochimaru. The very fact he was wearing that thing also, and most importantly, meant I'd die in the future, and instead of him returning to the village as I'd intended for him, he'd make the wrong decision. Had he chosen the path of revenge after all? It was not what I'd expected. It was not what I'd wanted to die for. Disappointment, anger and sorrow all washed over me as I stared at my foolish little brother. _So foolish._

He looked up, then glanced at Ella and Kakashi who were standing closest to him. I saw him reach for what was probably a kunai as he was about to take distance, when he spotted me. His eyes widened, but then they narrowed again.

"What is…?" he looked at Kakashi, then looked at Sasori, and back at me again. Ella, in the meanwhile, had wisely taken her distance from him. He instantly activated his Sharingan and stared intently at me, then I saw his face pale and his mouth open slightly. "Not… not a genjutsu?" he nearly gasped. I shifted my gaze to Sasori.

"I'll handle this." He glanced from me to Sasuke.

"Very well," he said, and left to the backyard, so he probably wouldn't hear any of our conversation, which I appreciated. Kakashi frowned slightly, but left as well, and so did Ella as she picked up Alexandria who was struggling wildly, though Ella looked incredibly concerned. I turned to look back at my younger brother again, and he looked utterly horror-struck.

Y-you… you're… but _how_?" he nearly choked out, and I closed my eyes for a few seconds.

"I'll explain, so listen carefully," I told him calmly, though inside of me it felt like there was a raging storm. I began to tell him the entire story, but I don't think he was very interested in that. He was still trying to process seeing me again. When I was finished he kept staring at me, and then it looked like he was ready to burst into tears. I was surprised he actually managed not to.

"I-Itachi, I… I actually… and, and I didn't know," He wasn't making much sense but I understood him nevertheless. He grabbed my cloak, desperately clinging to it like it was a lifeline. "Nii-san, if I'd… if I'd just known…." Now he did started sobbing, though it was just muffled noises as he had his head against my chest, still holding onto me. I sighed deeply, feeling all sorts of mixed emotions as I put my head on top of his head. I was tired, frustrated and saddened. Then he stared up at me, wiping his tears away, and I already knew what he was going to say.

"Sasuke," I tried, but he interrupted me by basically exploding, in the figurative sense of the word of course.

"Why didn't you tell me? I thought… for YEARS, I hated you so much! The only reason I even bothered getting stronger was just to get revenge! Why? When you could've just explained it all! Why did you lie to me all that time? I… I _killed _you and then… did you even realize how that made me feel, dammit? Why… why…." he took shaky, shallow breaths and was obviously a complete mess as of now. I rubbed my forehead.

"Why are you wearing that cloak, Sasuke?" I then asked, my voice calm but I felt so incredibly frustrated with him from the inside. He froze for a second, as he'd still noticed the upset look on my face.

"It's… they should pay! Look at what they did to you, and to our entire clan!" he yelled, and my scowl deepened, which stopped his shouting somewhat. "Konoha has to pay the price!" he hissed, I just slightly gritted my teeth, and couldn't remember a moment where I'd been as angry with him as I was now.

"Sasuke, I didn't sacrifice myself so you could…." I stopped before I said anything that would make the situation worse and instead said, "Konoha? You want revenge on the entire village?"

"They're all just as guilty as their corrupt elders," Sasuke spat with clear scorn. "They're-"

"They're innocent." I briskly interrupted him and nearly raised my voice and he flinched at this. "I understand you're angry at the elders, but you _cannot _bring innocent people into this, Sasuke." He glared at the ground, but didn't really protest.

"It's... not fair." He'd obviously been suffering a lot, and I felt so very compelled to comfort him but that's not what he needed. He needed to open his eyes and see what he was doing was wrong. But then he looked up at me. "But, you're alive now. So… I… I got a second chance." For a second he reminded me of the younger, still innocent Sasuke from years ago, when he'd just been happy and carefree.

"I suppose so," I glanced at the kitchen door "though this will certainly make things a lot more complicated."

"Because of the other Akatsuki?" I nodded. "I can act just fine, if that makes it any easier for you," he suggested, keen to assist me, but I shook my head.

"It's fine. I doubt it would be much of an issue. Though, about Tobi, it's probably best if you pretended not to know him."

I then heard the front door open with a loud _click_.

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

"What the _fuck_?" I gaped at Sasuke. Akatsuki version Sasuke. "What is he… did Ella make another wish?" Then I realized Deidara was right behind me.

"You… you son of a bitch!" he hissed, and Sasuke raised his eyebrows indifferently.

"That's odd. I thought I'd killed you. Or actually, you blew yourself up, wasn't that right?" Tobi held Deidara back from lunging at Sasuke and I awkwardly stood at the sidelines, wondering what I should do. Hidan just snickered and Kakuzu didn't give a damn about anything because he's badass like that and sat down on the couch, grabbing the remote and switching the TV on. Though his indifference tended to annoy me in some situations, I couldn't help but admire how cool he was, which was really, really not the way I usually rolled.

Then Pain finally came downstairs and though I did wonder what he did up in his room all day (writing, reading, masturbation, drugs?) I was kind of distracted by Deidara's flailing arms, one of them which nearly hit me in the face hadn't I ducked.

"I'LL KILL YOU FOR REAL THIS TIME, YEAH!"

"Deidara, calm down," Pain ordered slightly annoyed, and looked from Sasuke to Itachi. From the frown he was giving them I could tell he thought there was something off at the way Sasuke was standing rather relaxed next to his brother, but didn't comment on it. "I trust you can keep him in check?" he asked Itachi instead, who nodded solemnly. I noticed the whites of Sasuke's eyes were slightly red and guessed he'd probably been crying.

Well this was going to be absolutely fabulous. Deidara would probably try to kill Sasuke on a regular basis from now on, not to mention that Sasuke had tried to kill Kakashi as well, add to that the tension between Tobi and Itachi as the latter obviously greatly disliked the former, plus me, generally an anti-Sasuke person, and we were in deep shit.

Like six feet deep shit.

* * *

><p><strong>DOOOOOOOOONE! FINALLY, GODDAMMIT. Now I can relax a little :D<strong>

**I tried to get Itachi as in character as possible. I actually feel like it came out better than expected, but it's still like… I AM NOT WORTHY, you know? I mean, it's **_**Itachi. **_**If I fuck up his personality I'll NEVER forgive myself!**

**NEVAR.**

**I'M SUPER CEREAL GUYS.**

**Anyway, I think Sasuke is just slightly OOC here, sorry if that bothers you. I just figured it would be a lot better and touching if he were emotionally more... open. So that's actually the only aspect of his character I adjusted. And uh, don't worry, this is as OOC as it will ever get. So yeah, there you have it. **

**So, heh. Yeah. Next chapter, Alex' curse is FINALLY broken! So, moar Alex. Couldn't do much with her this chapter because she's a fox D:**

**And, uhm, tension rises in the house because of obvious reasons. Derp.**

**BIG THANKS TO Bree**_**-Chan, Deidara's Dragon, yyh-ygo-fma, SillylittleOtaku, Good boy-chan, Hanoone, Coccinelover, lifeforrent, RandomAwesomer101, NAILxPOLISH, BeneaththeMarquee, demee, Happy Crying, RampageousLungi, Logarythm**_** and **_**xShadowAllstarx.**_** YOU GUYS ROCK!**

**See ya next time and don't forget to drop a review :3**


	13. Phone calls from the past

**Y DERE R SO MANY REVIEWZ?**

**Not that I'm complaining, I'm just kinda dumbstruck.**

**Enjoy ^_^**

* * *

><p><strong>Alex<strong>

I watched annoyed as Suzan was now scowling at Ella and demanding an explanation as to why there was another character in our universe. Ella sighed tiredly, and told her the entire story. Only then Suzan glanced down and saw me. Behind us (as we were now all standing in the living room) Kakuzu and Hidan were arguing about some stupid TV show again, Deidara, Sasori and Kakashi were mainly just "talking" to Sasuke as Itachi watched. More like, Kakashi was glaring at him and Deidara was basically yelling his head off. Tobi was gone, he'd disappeared probably to the roof.

I looked up at Suzan, who blinked slowly. I noticed her nose seemed bruised, and wondered how that had happened. Then she guffawed. I growled at her, which only made her laugh harder as she clutched her stomach and had to grab Ella's shoulder or she would've dropped on her knees.

"A little fox! Oh my god! This is SO PRICELESS!" She continued laughing while pointing at me, and I took that opportunity to jump up and bite her, though not hard enough to draw blood. Suzan nearly hissed at me as she backed off and instantly stopped laughing. "Geez, can you blame me? You look ridiculous!" She squatted down, studying me and the amused smirk returned to her face. "Poor little Alex!"

"Suzan," Ella scolded, though somewhat tiredly, and I got concerned. This certainly had added lot more stress on her and I was afraid she'd collapse on the spot or something.

"Fine, fine. It would only last a day, right?" Suze answered as she glanced at me. I tried to nod a little, and luckily she understood it. "So, that old hag cursed you, and because she hated you so much she decided to drop Sasuke here. I suppose we can't convince her to just return them to their, you know, world?" I would have said something but I couldn't really answer her in my current state. Luckily enough Ella seemed to have been thinking the same thing I had.

"Well, maybe it would work if you went to see her? You were the one who helped her out and got us those wishes in the first place." Ella stated, and Suzan seemed to agree.

"I suppose I'll go look for her eventually. Though now I'd just like some ice for my nose please," Suzan said, though she walked into the kitchen to get the ice herself. Ella looked down at me a little glumly, then sighed deeply and walked upstairs to her bedroom, probably to get some sleep. She looked completely worn out. She hadn't been eating much food lately either, but I guessed she would recover eventually. It just needed time.

"You… YOU SON OF A-" I quickly spun around and got in a defensive position when I heard serious screaming coming from behind me, and ran under the coffee table. My tail hit Hidan's foot, who was startled and jumped up, a little freaked out, accidentally elbowing Kakuzu in the ribs, who then gave him a shove so he completely lost his balance and fell against Deidara's back, who then fell over right into Sasuke.

And that's how you create utter chaos.

I kept myself hidden under the table as Deidara was yelling at Hidan and at the other hand Kakuzu was snarling at him. Sasuke's hand was reaching for a kunai, then of course Kakashi had to get involved and stop him, which would probably lead to a fight and for a few seconds I seriously thought they were going to have an all-out battle when Pain, who'd been silent the entire time, finally did something. The only ones who were calm were Kakuzu, Itachi and Sasori.

"_Silence_." His voice was loud and clear over all the screams of the other people, and the fights instantly died out. "I will not tolerate any fighting. We need to keep a low profile and focus on getting back to our world as soon as possible. This arguing will only hold us back from reaching that goal." He then turned to Sasuke. "It's best if you kept your distance from the other members, and I'll have Itachi keep an eye on you." He didn't ask why Sasuke was wearing that robe. I assumed he'd already guessed that Tobi was behind it and had decided not to make the situation more complicated than it already was. Or at least, I figured that was the most logical explanation.

The arguing members grudgingly agreed while both Sasuke and Kakashi just stayed quiet and kept their distance from each other. It was obvious there was a lot of tension between them. You know, because your former pupil trying to kill you can tend to fuck your teacher-student relationship up badly.

I finally decided to come out from under the table and hopped on the armchair. Of course Deidara then _sat _on me because he didn't see me. So I bit him. Then felt like washing my mouth with soap, considering I'd just bit his ass.

"Ow! You little-" he tried to grab me but I quickly jumped away with my foxy reflexes, and ran to the backyard, where Suzan was hanging out on the grass right next to the pool, with a bag of ice cubes next to her which she'd probably put on her nose. She had fallen asleep. The sky was cloudy and it looked like it could rain at any moment. I felt like scaring her awake by growling in her ear, but then the door behind me opened loudly. I shot into a few bushes, my fox instincts taking over for a second there. I spotted a most curious sight; Hidan, who looked around for a little, saw her sleeping on the grass. I got nervous as he approached her, curiosity glinting in his eyes.

He leaned over her, with a scowl. _What's he going to do? OH MY GOD, HE'S TOTALLY GONNA RAPE-_

Then he lightly poked her in the side with his foot.

_Oh, well, never mind then. _I thought relieved, though it was kind of silly of me thinking that in the first place. Sure, he was a blood loving masochist but somehow he didn't seem like the rapist type at all. Meanwhile, Suzan didn't wake up. I was seriously getting interested now. He poked her again, though it was harder. She merely grunted and rolled over, showing him her back, which clearly irritated him.

"Oi, wake up already!" he huffed.

"Mmm… make me…." Suzan muttered, curling up in a little ball as she tried to sleep on. Hidan smirked widely, then kneeled down, picked her up and walked over to the pool with her. "Hey! HEY! LET GO!" she yelled panicked when she saw what he was planning. I wish I could snicker. Instead my laughter made a noise that sounded like I was choking or something.

"Awake now, aren't we?"

Then I had a brilliant, just brilliant idea for a prank. I snuck up behind them, as Hidan was standing at the very edge of the pool, and bit his ankles. He was surprised, lost his footing and with a yell fell down in the pool with Suzan, who cursed loudly before she went underwater. I made that choking noise again as I would've been laughing my ass off had I been human. The two resurfaced, glaring at me and I got the hell out of there as soon as possible.

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

I closed my curtains and switched on my light as it was evening now. My room was a lot cleaner than it had been just a few days ago, and I felt like I had made nice little steps to recovery. I lied down on my bed and stared up at my ceiling. I expected the guys to leave in a few weeks at max. It shouldn't be hard for a genius like Tobi to figure out a way back. I wasn't actually looking forward to it if I was honest with myself. I'd gotten used to have most of them around now, and I was certain the house was going to feel very empty when they left. I hugged my pillow as I turned on my side, staring at my lavender colored wall. So far, besides maybe the sarcastic attitude, Kakashi was every bit as cool as I'd expected him to be. He was also one of the few in the house I could have a nice conversation with. Deidara was actually nicer than I expected, Tobi actually a lot more scary and the others generally left me alone.

Believe it or not, I'd started to also like Itachi a lot more than I'd done in the series. I mean, I'd started to respect him a lot more. If I felt this much pain at just hearing my family got killed, how could he have possibly felt when he'd killed his entire family himself? How had he not gone insane? There was a mutual understanding between us I hadn't thought possible before. In the very beginning I hadn't thought much of him, to be honest. I understood his reasons for doing whatever he did, but had never bothered to think about what it had done to him personally because he'd just been _fictional _back then. Now it was different. I could almost hear it in his voice, and I felt for him. Though I did very much disagree with what he'd done, that is, messing with his younger brother's head for all those years, I did understand it.

I then heard a knock on my door. I didn't feel like responding so I just stayed on my bed and hoped that whoever it was would go away. I felt like sleeping as I was tired. But it seemed I didn't have that much luck. I heard the door open with a soft _click _and I sighed deeply.

"Ella?" I heard Deidara ask unsurely.

"Hmm?" I responded dully, not bothering to turn to face him.

"Think you're up for cooking, yeah? The guys are kinda getting hungry, and Alex is a fox so she can't… you look horrible." He interrupted his own sentence when he saw the worn out look on my face, and my hair which was a complete mess like usual as I sat up straight and finally looked at him.

"Just a little tired." I responded as I stood up and slowly walked out of the room, past Deidara, who called after me anyway.

"Hey… you don't _have _to. I mean, you look pretty bad, yeah. Maybe you should sleep?" I rubbed my forehead in irritation but didn't respond. I knew I _wanted_ to sleep as well, but I just couldn't. Might as well do something useful for the others. I walked down the stairs, completely ignoring everyone else as I made my way to the kitchen almost like a zombie and didn't so much as flinch when Tobi suddenly appeared right in front of me when I opened the door.

"Ne, Ella-chan, you look bad!" I didn't respond as I walked around him and opened the fridge, trying to think of what to cook. "Ella-chan," Tobi whined, and I shot him a glance.

"What is it?" I asked in a soft voice, not feeling like I had enough energy to deal with him as I grabbed a few vegetables and started to wash them before cutting them up.

"How long has it been since the accident?" I froze for a second, suspicious and alarmed, but responded nevertheless.

"About a month." I mumbled.

"Ooooh. So you're getting over it slowly, right, Ella-chan?" I nodded as I continued to cut a cucumber up. "Tobi felt so disappointed though, Eva-chan was supposed to come over, wasn't she?" I squeezed the knife I was holding when I heard that name, but I didn't respond. "So, so, Ella-chan's parents were supposed to pick Eva-chan up! I bet Eva-chan was happy-"

"Tobi, please stop," I nearly whimpered, not wanting to hear any more of it. I'd just been doing so well. I'd _just _began to come to terms with it. I couldn't afford to start at the beginning again. Tobi pretended not to hear me.

"-happy she got to see her big sis again! So sad it didn't happen! I bet Eva-chan was just as sweet as Ella-chan! How old did Ella-chan say she was? Sixteen? Oh, then Eva-chan was so young when she-"

"SHUT UP!" I broke. Something in my mind just snapped in two like a little twig. I'd been crying all this time, grieving, trying to get over it. All the anger I felt, I'd just locked away. I told myself, there was nothing to be angry about, so I shouldn't. I should just cry like a good sister, a good daughter, and not cause any more commotion than was necessary. I didn't want anyone to worry about me more than they should. But I couldn't take it any longer, I had to let it all out. In my fury I'd thrown the knife at him. I wanted him to go away, shut up, leave me alone, just make him stop!

He dodged it by cocking his head to the right and the knife hit the wall, stuck in the hard cement. I was trembling, feeling tears sting in my eyes as I glared at the masked man.

"Did Tobi upset Ella-chan?" he said remorsefully, though there was an amused undertone to his voice. He was _mocking_ me. Patronizing me! The kitchen door opened and Sasori and Kakuzu walked in, though the latter stopped to look at me and then at the knife sticking in the wall. Sasori pulled said knife out, and Kakuzu then looked at Tobi.

"I'm not going to pay for your funeral when she finally kills you," he stated dryly and sat down on the chair against the kitchen table. Sasori gave me the knife back, obviously not caring I was having a breakdown.

"Aw, but, but, but Ella-chan wouldn't do that! She's too sweet!" he exclaimed. Meanwhile I was starting to hyperventilate, clutching the knife tightly as it shook in my trembling hand.

"Hmm? You look upset." Sasori dryly noted, and everything started spinning. I was getting so dizzy and my vision started to blur, it was as if time was being put on fast-forward mode.. Several different voices were echoing through my head and it hurt, a lot. I felt two strong arms around me protectively, lifting me up and carrying me away somewhere. I didn't care who it was, I hadn't even realized I'd fallen in the first place.

All I wanted to do was sleep and never wake up again.

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

I sneezed as I got out of the pool, an unusually cold wind blowing right into my face and I glared at Hidan who was equally frustrated as I was. He slicked his hair back again, since it had been all over his face, and finally noticed the look I was giving him and scoffed at me, as if _I _was the one who'd dropped both of us in the goddamn pool.

"Why did you wake me up anyway?" I snapped annoyed while I wrung the water out my shirt. Hidan then broke eye-contact and avoided my gaze as he reluctantly answered,

"It was going to rain."

"Hold up, you were worried I'd get soaked?" I said slowly, a little dumbstruck. He scowled at me now, folding his arms.

"No, that you'd get sick! I hate sick people! It's not like I cared about you specifically!" he nearly yelled, very defensively. Usually I would've noted his defensive attitude, but his last remark had… kind of stung. I mean, I'd known the guy for a month now and he still didn't care about me at all? Not even just a tiny bit?

"Well, fine then! I don't care about you either!" I yelled right back, really getting pissed off about it.

"Good, you stupid bitch! That's how it's supposed to be!"

"I know!"

"I don't give a damn about you, so don't ever start caring about me!"

"I WON'T!" I marched back inside as he stayed outside, my blood boiling under my skin. Before I could even think about the conversation, analyze it and realize what was really going on, I entered the kitchen and saw Ella being carried out by Kakashi. My anger disappeared instantly, and struck with concern I followed them, ignoring the people in the kitchen who were staring at me, considering I was soaking wet. Kakashi put her down on the couch, and I saw Itachi approach her as well, looking her over with a frown. I turned to Kakashi.

"What happened?" I asked worriedly. She seemed incredibly pale and she was sweating, her breathing shallow and quick.

"I'm not sure," Kakashi honestly answered "when I got in the kitchen I saw her trembling with a knife in her hand and soon after she fainted." I sighed deeply, and decided to go look for a blanket upstairs. As I walked into my own room for a spare blanket, I briefly thought back at my falling out with Hidan. I'd have to talk to him about that. Clearly there was something that was bugging him and he was taking it out on me. Some sort of insecurity, perhaps? I hadn't seen it back then because I'd been angry, but now I looked back it became a lot clearer. I remembered the exact words he'd yelled at me. It had sounded like he was warning me not to get too close to him, not to care about him.

Well, that warning came a little too late now.

* * *

><p><strong>Alex<strong>

I woke up very late the next day, in my own room, on my bed, naked, as a human. I sighed relieved and noticed Suzan had probably already gotten up as she wasn't here. I got dressed, went to the bathroom to wash up and then went downstairs, only to find Ella sleeping on the couch. She looked rather bad. I found Suzan by her side. Itachi was sitting on the armchair and glanced once at me as I came down. Deidara was sitting on the very end of the couch, a little grumpily while he shot a glare every now and then towards Sasuke, who was sitting on the only other armchair in the room. Kakashi was playing chess against Kakuzu (which was a weird sight). I walked over to Suzan, who was surprised to see me back in my human form, and told me what had happened last night.

"Oh… geez…." I looked down at Ella empathetically. The girl just didn't get a break, did she? At the same time I felt like really yelling at Tobi for this, but I couldn't be bothered to go look for him. I decided to go make some breakfast, and walked to the kitchen, seeing Pain eat an apple and Hidan sitting on the table, obviously bored. Sasori was sitting on a chair against the table, reading a book. I asked them if they'd already eaten, and Pain answered saying they'd appreciate a decent meal, so I got to work.

As I was preparing breakfast, my phone suddenly rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and answered it.

"_I got the IDs." _I recognized the voice of one of my contacts. This particular person was especially good in providing anything from IDs to driver's licenses. Such were the advantages of being a paid hacker. You get to know people you otherwise wouldn't, and those people tend to have skills your regular folk lacked.

"Took you long enough."

"_Hey, it's been a busy week. Anyway, one of my guys will bring it over to you in about an hour." _

"Thanks." I hung up, putting my phone back in my pocket. I chuckled a little when I remembered the day we had to take pictures of the guys.

"_Hidan, seriously! Stop doing that!" Suzan snapped at him, as he was making funny faces at the camera. He flipped her off and she rolled her eyes. Eventually Kakuzu got tired of waiting for his turn so he walked up to him and dragged him away, so it was Kakashi's turn. _

"_Uh, you'll have to pull your mask down, otherwise-"_

"_I refuse." Kakashi bluntly stated. Alex scowled at him._

"_I'm not kidding, it's necessary your whole face is visible on the picture."_

"_No."_

"_Fine! No ID for you!" _

"_ALRIGHT, let me take the damn picture already!" Hidan interrupted as Kakashi walked off, obviously pleased. _

"_No funny faces?" Suzan asked sternly._

"_No funny faces," he repeated. He took the picture while glaring at the camera. Of course Pain and Kakuzu didn't take the picture either because how the hell were they going to explain the eyes? They were taking the pictures at home, as any professional photographer wouldn't know what hit him if he saw the unruly bunch in his studio. Alex looked around. Everyone else had already went, except Tobi._

"_Eh, I suppose Tobi doesn't want to take his mask off either?"_

"_Nope!" _

"_Alright then, who's-"_

"_BUT I WANNA TAKE A PICTURE!" _

"_Tobi, no. If you're not going to pull your mask off-"_

"_TOBI WANTS PICTURE!"_

"_No, Tobi!"_

"_BUT WHYYYYYYYYY?" _

"_Just let him take the damn picture," Kakuzu huffed annoyed. _

_And so Tobi got about twenty utterly useless pictures whom he'd never use but apparently liked staring at. _

I sighed at the memory as I baked some pancakes, and most of the guys were now sitting and waiting for me. I realized I'd have to get another ID for Sasuke as he'd just arrived, and wondered why I hadn't told my contact that when I had him on the phone. _I'm getting forgetful, _I thought wearily.

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

I decided to stay in the living room as most others went to get something to eat. I smelled the sweet scent of pancakes but didn't budge. Itachi and Sasuke stayed as well. I glanced at the former, and caught him look at Ella. He then shifted his gaze to me, and then looked away. I found that rather peculiar of him, and I looked at him for a few seconds longer before deciding to watch some TV. I assumed Sasuke was only still here because he'd now rather hang around Itachi as much as possible, considering all the lost time. I didn't really bother speaking to him at all, as I knew he didn't like talking much.

"Mmh," Ella groaned and I wondered if she was finally waking up. No such luck. It looked like she was having a nightmare of some sort because she wouldn't hold still after the grunting. I put my hand on her forehead, but it didn't feel like she had a fever. It did calm her down a little though. I was sitting on a chair next to her, as she was still on the couch. I'd figured it was easier to keep an eye on her than if she'd been in her room.

"Suze!" I then heard Alex call from the kitchen and recognized the ringtone of my phone. I'd left it in the kitchen. I left Ella to get the phone from Alex. When I entered the kitchen, I briefly glanced at Hidan, and noticed he was looking at me as well. He looked away gruffly, and I glared, even if he couldn't see it, as I took my phone from Alex and answered it. _Childish prick. _

"Hello?" I asked, not having bothered to check caller ID. I walked back in the living room and sat back on the chair.

"_Suzan?_" Upon hearing that voice, my voice turned cold as ice.

"Oh. It's you. Why are you calling me?"

"_We haven't talked in years and you respond to me like this?_"

"I asked why you were calling me."

"_I see you're still as cold as ever, Suzan."_

"What do you want from me?" I snapped, the scorn and distaste clear in my voice. I noticed both Sasuke and Itachi looking at me now, and quickly decided to leave, walking through the kitchen, to the backyard, ignoring the looks I was getting.

"…"

"Is that all? Can I hang up now, mother?" I sneered hatefully. I really didn't want to talk to her at the moment. There were more important matters going on.

"_Come back home." _Her voice was as cold and clear as mine, but I could hear a tired undertone to it. She seemed rather jaded, from what I could tell. I laughed humorlessly.

"Come back? What, to be ignored and thrown away again like a ragdoll? Is that what you want, mother?" She tried to speak but I continued talking. "You were the ones who didn't give two shits about your own goddamn daughter! You were the ones who kept pushing me aside! You fucking alienated me and you think you can fix this with one phone call? Have you lost your fucking mind? I never want to see you people again, do you fucking hear me?" I was screaming, and no doubt attracting attention from the guys in the kitchen, but I didn't care. "Delete my number and forget I exist! I don't want anything to-"

"_Suzan, your father has cancer." _

My world stopped.

"He… what?" I heard my mother sigh and I was nailed to the ground. It all came so suddenly. How? And since when?

"_He has lung cancer, and refuses treatment. Without treatment he probably has a few months to live at best. We want you to come back home, Suzan. He wants to… spend time with his daughter, before he… before he passes away." _My mother's voice had softened considerably. Memories flooded my mind.

None of them were good memories.

My earliest memory, when I was around five, and playing in the park. I'd tried climbing a tree, then had fell and injured my knee. I'd ran crying to my mother, who'd just scoffed and rolled her eyes, telling me what a troublesome child I was, and dragging me off home, treating the minor injury with disdain in her eyes. It made me feel so very small. From then on, I'd decided to try and be a better daughter. Maybe then they'd notice me? Notice my hard work and praise me for it. But no. Even when I came home with straight A's on my rapport card. I'd shown my father, who just waved me off and told me he didn't have time for "nonsense".

I'd tried showing my mother, who'd just roughly pushed me aside as she was baking a cake for dad's boss who'd been coming over for dinner that night. His job was more important than their daughter. I'd been eleven at the time. That night I stayed up crying, wondering what I'd done wrong for them to treat me like that. As if they didn't want me to exist. Like I was some annoying fly buzzing around them.

Then I got angry. If positive accomplishments weren't going to get their attention, then maybe negative ones would work. I started stealing regularly. They never questioned where I got my new stuff. I came home smelling like pot. They didn't even bat an eye. I skipped school regularly. They couldn't care less.

Only when I got caught stealing and the police called up my parents, they gave me what I wanted. They'd screamed at me and yelled at me, grounding me for a month and sending me up to my room with no dinner. I couldn't help but laugh the next day, when they'd seemed to have forgotten me again.

Eventually, they decided they didn't want to deal with me so they introduced me to Ella. Everything was so much better after that. She treated me like a real person, she was even more than a mother to me than my biological one was. So I moved in with her when I turned eighteen and had finished high school.

My parents didn't care.

Now they expected me to care about _them_?

"Go fuck yourself." I hissed through the phone, and hung up, putting my phone away in my pocket.

Then I sat down on the grass, and stayed there motionlessly, with an empty feeling, for a very, very long time.

* * *

><p><strong>AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! IT'S FINALLY DONE!<strong>

**Wow, I'm a real bitch to these characters, huh? OH WELL. DRAMA = GOOD.**

**I would've uploaded this yesterday, BUT, my laptop was acting freaky so yeah. ANYWAY, I hope you enjoyed :D**

**Next chapter. Some. Uhm. Romance, I suppose. YAY. FINALLY ROMANCE.**

**BIG THANKS TO **_**RandomAwesomer101, dettarsvenska, Hanoone, BeneaththeMarquee, coccinelover, **__**virkelighetsflukt**__**, Good boy-chan, yyh-ygo-fma, Itty-bitty-button-YAOI-lover, Mahri, DeeDeeSawABee, Creeper-chan, Bree-Chan, Lost Location, The Ultimate Baka, Akatsuki's Bitch, shadow346437, xShadowAllstarx, starrsbug, Bookielovesanimeeee, Deidara's Dragon **_**and **_**NAILxPOLISH.**_

**SO. MANY. PEOPLE. TO. THANK.**

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	14. Kakuzu the Immortal Pimp

**SUPLISE!**

**I was supposed to study for an English test but hey, this kind of counts like studying as well, right? **

**Oh whatever, shut up. I'm gonna ace that test either way.**

**ENJOY TEH STOLY.**

* * *

><p><strong>Sasuke<strong>

I looked at the woman lying on the couch for a moment. She had soft features, almond shaped eyes with thick eyelashes and a pointy nose. She looked very feminine and like she was probably a gentle and soft-spoken person. I noticed Itachi sometimes looking at her, and I got irritated by this. Why did he care about some woman while I was here? But then of course, it wasn't like I could just casually talk to him. What would we even talk about? Small talk would just be awkward. Our lives hadn't exactly been normal, and it wasn't like we could fix everything this fast. When he saw I'd caught him looking at the woman, he sighed deeply, and looked away to the TV. It was like there was this gigantic wall between us and I had no idea how to break it down.

"Hmm…" The woman woke up and of course his gaze shifted to her again. She looked around, glancing at me, then at Itachi. "How long was I asleep?" she asked softly.

"About a day," Itachi answered and she seemed genuinely shocked.

"Oh. Have I been lying here all this time?" He nodded, and she seemed a little embarrassed hearing that.

"Why'd you faint?" I then asked, realizing I had no clue what had happened before that. She looked at me, a little flustered by my sudden question but answered nonetheless.

"Too much stress, I suppose." she muttered and tried to get up a little too fast. She was obviously still very dizzy and disoriented from having been asleep from so long and lost her footing. I watched my brother react almost instantly as he caught her arm and kept her standing. "Ah, thank you," she said gratefully. She was really starting to annoy me by now. I had no intention on sharing my brother with some stranger. So I just scowled at her and when she noticed she seemed a little confused.

"Do you want some water?" I was actually dumbstruck. _What? He's offering her water? He hasn't offered _me _any water! _I then realized I was being childish and frowned at myself. Still, it was odd. Apparently the woman seemed to think so as well because she seemed rather startled by the sudden question.

"A-ah, uhm… well, I can just get it myself." she said gently.

"It's best if you sit down a while longer," Itachi responded calmly as he walked towards the kitchen and left. He did have a point, as she didn't look entirely clear-headed yet. The woman sat down, and finally noticed me glaring at her. She didn't say anything but after a few seconds it began to bug her.

"Sasuke, why are you staring at me like that?" My scowl deepened.

"Hn," I looked away, not feeling like saying anything to her.

"Did I offend you in some way?" I glanced briefly at her and pretended to be busy with staring at the TV.

"No."

"Well, you kind of look like you want me dead."

"Must be your imagination."

"Oh. Uhm… okay then." I had made it clear I didn't like her, and she seemed to not understand why. Then Itachi came back with the water and handed it to her. She smiled warmly at him."Thank you," She was _really _getting on my nerves.

"How are you feeling?" This made me utterly frustrated. Why was he concerned about her, some… some stupid woman, when his younger brother was sitting right across him, wanting to fix their relationship? Why wasn't he asking _me _how I was feeling? He at least owed me that much!

"I could be better, but I'm doing well all things considered." she answered, still smiling kindly. It pissed me off. Itachi glanced at me.

"Ella, could you excuse us for a second? I need to have a chat with Sasuke." The woman looked from me to my brother, then nodded and left the room, carefully walking upstairs. I folded my arms, looking at Itachi who had a very slight frown on his face. "You've been tense all day." he noted dryly and I rolled my eyes.

"And you have no clue why?" I responded irritably.

"I didn't say that."

"So you know why?" He looked away for a moment before he answered.

"I know you want things to go back to how they were, but it can never be that way." I gritted my teeth, glaring down at my knees. I knew that it was impossible, but still, it kind of hurt hearing it coming from him. "We can only try to fix it, and that will take time. You understand that, don't you?" I nodded. "Yet you don't act like it." I opened my mouth to protest but he raised his hand. "You want my undivided attention, though you don't know what to say, and then you get jealous when you don't get it."

"That's not… what is she to you anyway?" I said, not having a good response to his comment. He didn't say anything for a while, as if he was _just now_ contemplating his relationship with that woman.

"I suppose you could say she's a friend." I scoffed at this.

"So you can talk to that woman but not to your own brother?" He narrowed his eyes.

"Sasuke, you're being childish."

"I'm… I'm being childish?" I repeated baffled.

"Did you not hear me? Last time I checked you still had ears." I was about to get angry, when I realized what he'd just said. I blinked, staring at him for a while longer, and I could see the faintest smile on his face.

"Nii-san… was that a _joke_?"

Itachi's smile faded and he sighed, rubbing his forehead.

"Yes, Sasuke. That was a joke. And you just ruined it."

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

I walked upstairs as I didn't want to be rude and eavesdrop on them, and figured reading a book would make me feel better. Or at least I'd thought so. When I was sitting on the chair in my room, near the window with a great novel in my hands, I couldn't bring myself to read it. I felt like doing absolutely nothing. Just sitting there and watch time go by as if I wasn't part of it. I had a view of the backyard from my room, and I could see Alex and Suzan having an argument again, though Alex had decided to take a swim and Suzan was sitting on the side of the pool with clothes on. It was rather hot outside. I almost considered going out for a dive myself. A knock on my door kind of woke me up out of my trance-like state and the door opened slowly.

"Ella? Mind if I come in?" Kakashi asked, and I nodded, putting the book away.

"What's wrong?" I asked, leaning my head on my right hand.

"Nothing, just felt like having a chat, that's all." he said casually, a little _too _casual.

"Then why don't I believe you?"

"Maybe you're paranoid?" I rolled my eyes, annoyed. He was leaning against the wall across from me, his arms folded. "Hm," he muttered as he stared at me attentively.

"What?" I asked with a frown.

"Nothing," he responded innocently, looking away.

"What is it?" I insisted.

"Nothing!" he repeated, raising his hands as if I'd accused him of something.

"Listen, that breakdown earlier, I don't know what happened, but it won't happen again, alright? So please don't worry about that." Kakashi chuckled, which only annoyed me more.

"Paranoid," he pointed out, and I glared. "I just noticed you seem to be a lot more… hmm… I suppose, _comfortable_, around me." I stared at him for a while, not sure how to respond to that.

"Uhm… oh. Well, I never noticed that before." I eventually muttered in response. I really hadn't. It came as somewhat of a surprise to me.

"I haven't seen you glare at anyone else besides me, Suzan or Alex. Or even respond somewhat annoyed. Just thought it was interesting."

"Your idea of "chatting" is psychoanalyzing me?"

"Maybe." Kakashi really did seemed to be enjoying this conversation. "But if I really wanted to psychoanalyze you, I would've brought up the fact that you tried to kill our masked friend." he added and I sighed. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked on a serious tone, and I chuckled, leaning back in my seat.

"Are you my therapist now? Alright then. When I was five years old, there was this cat…."

"Ella," he said amused as he walked over to me and started staring out the window next to me "you know that's not what I meant." I stared down at my knees, really not wanting to talk about it. "Huh, I haven't seen you make jokes around other people either."

"I'm fine," I told him, ignoring his last comment, but it sounded as if I was trying to convince myself instead of him.

"No, you're not fine." Kakashi said sharply, staring down at me with a scowl. "It's alright if you're angry, Ella. It's only natural." I avoided his gaze, and tried not to think about it. My parents had been very strict, incredibly strict about being calm and smiling at all times, polite to everyone and considerate of other people's feelings. They'd always told me to not be a burden to other people. I couldn't just let those morals go. If I got angry and caused a scene like last time…. That would just be humiliating to me.

"It's _stupid _and unnecessary!" I eventually exclaimed. "What point is there in getting angry and causing trouble for other people?"

"What point is there in trying to lock it all up and then explode anyway? And you're… you're worried about causing problems for other people?" he repeated a little baffled. "Do you realize what you've just been through? Who _cares _about how it inconveniences other people? You have all the right to grieve however you want to."

"But it's…." I sighed and rubbed my temples, trying to sort the mess in my head all out. I felt his hand on my shoulder, and felt a little more at ease. "I'm just… too much of a pacifist to really get angry," I said with a halfhearted smile.

"I do agree that you're a little too soft, but even you have a breaking point." I finally had the courage to look up at him. "Please do me a favor, and take care of yourself a little more, alright? I really hate worrying." he said, and I felt a light squeeze in my shoulder. So he'd actually been worrying about me? I couldn't help but smile brightly hearing that. He seemed a little taken aback by this.

"Would you hold it against me, if I said I'm really glad I wished you here?"

"Oh… huh… well, uh… no, I suppose not," he responded awkwardly, which made me giggle. It was really amusing to see his usual cool exterior fall down like that. He sighed. "Well, I guess I should leave you alone for now." he decided and walked towards my bedroom door.

"Kakashi?" I asked softly. He stopped and looked over at me. "Could you please stay a while longer?" I requested tenderly. I really could use the company since it took my mind off things. I especially appreciated his company, mostly because it was so easy to talk to him. I thought saw him smiling.

"Sure. I suppose I could psychoanalyze you a little more."

* * *

><p><strong>Hidan<strong>

That annoying brat. That… that devious little witch! She just couldn't leave me alone, could she? For a second there, I thought she hadn't understood my warning, but apparently she had and she just didn't give a fuck. It was frustrating to say the least. I wasn't interested in making friends, dammit! Especially not in a world I would probably leave in a few weeks and never return to. But of course Suzan doesn't care, because she's Suzan and apparently being a Suzan meant you didn't give a damn about trivial things like certain actions having goddamn _consequences_.

"Listen, alright?" she snapped at me. I was on the roof and she'd climbed up from the ladder, apparently wanting to talk to me. I was on my back, trying to relax, near the edge. She was sitting next to me, her legs hanging off from the edge, apparently not afraid of heights. Or she trusted me to catch her if she fell. "You can't justify being a complete dick to me that way! It's unfair and just downright annoying!" I glared intensely at her.

"Aren't you supposed to be crying about your dad or something?" I snarled. Ouch, touchy subject; I could tell from the way her entire body froze and her hands were clutched. I'd heard about her dad having some disease from Tobi who'd eavesdropped Alex and Suzan having a conversation about it.

"That's _not _what this is about!" she yelled, louder than she usually was and clearly upset.

"Yeah, well, I don't care." I replied, trying to be as cold and indifferent as possible so she'd get the hint and go away. I don't know why I'd even started caring about the little nuisance in the first place. In the beginning, I would've just killed her if she'd even dared to yell at me, but now I'm not entirely sure if I could, and it frustrated me endlessly. Since when couldn't I kill someone? Did I go soft? I glared intensely at her. It was _her _fault, with all that ridiculous talk of wanting to be friends! It had thrown me off. No one else had told me that before.

"What is up with you?" she exclaimed, clearly as frustrated as I was at the moment, though for different reasons.

"You keep bugging me, that's what's up!" I growled, sitting up straight now. She narrowed her eyes.

"If you don't want to be friends, then just say so!"

"Fine, I don't want to be friends, now fuck off!" I shouted aggravated, and she folded her arms.

"I don't believe you," she huffed.

"FOR FUCK'S SAKE!" I yelled, getting up. "You're fucking impossible! What don't you understand about "fuck off"?" She stood up as well, fearlessly. Which could be considered brave, but also stupid. I towered above her, and I was many times stronger.

"Don't think I don't know what this is about!" she hissed. "The only reason why you're so reluctant is because you know you're going to leave and never see me again,"

"Then WHY don't you fucking leave me alone already?" I retorted harshly. She flinched but didn't back off.

"I don't _care_!" she responded, and I swear that this girl was the most stubborn, stupid-smart person I'd _ever _met.

"You… you're a complete moron!" I then yelled right in her face, which startled her. She tried to take a step back, but because it had rained just an hour ago, the roof was slippery and she lost her footing. She let out a scream as she fell down. I reacted almost instinctively, grabbing her arm tightly.

"Suzan!" I heard Alex shriek, as she'd been still outside outside and was standing right below her. I was the only thing that kept Suzan from falling. If I let her go maybe she'd break a leg and get the message. Maybe she'd even hit her head and die. Yeah, that's what I would've done just a few weeks ago. Now I just _couldn't. _It enraged me, as it was a completely unfamiliar feeling. She was staring up at me with wide eyes, stunned and scared, and I pulled her up. Why did I pull her up?

"T-thanks…." she stuttered, standing a little closer to me than I would've preferred. It made me uncomfortable. I gritted my teeth, letting her arm go and turning around, wanting to leave, but she then grabbed _my _arm and stopped me. "Hey, even if you don't care about me, I still care about you!" I was completely startled, and turned around to face her. "N-not in that way! Just as friends!" she said with a blush, letting my arm go and looking away, embarrassed. No one had told me that before either. She actually looked… really cute when she was blushing like that. _Stop. Right. There! _I mentally slapped myself.

"Are you fucking insane?" I then said in disbelief. "You realize what I'm like, right? Who in their right mind…." I didn't even finish my sentence, that's how confused I was. Oh great, just great. Now she was messing me up even _more. _

"I know, but, I don't think you're… evil. I mean, humans have been killing each other for ages now. It's actually quite natural if you think about it, even if it's sad, and at least you don't go out and randomly target people like a maniac, so… uhm…." I folded my arms, staring at her for a long time without saying anything.

"Now you're kinda thinking like a ninja," I noted, and couldn't help but smirk a little. She didn't seem too happy hearing that, though. "I guess there's no stopping you, huh? Well, fine, you damn brat. I give up." Her eyes lit up like fireworks, and for a second I was glad I'd given up, but then realized this was probably the dumbest thing I'd ever done and I scowled as she smiled happily at me.

"So I win! I knew you wanted to be friends," she teased, and I glared at her.

"Don't make me regret my decision, Sunshine!"

"Hehe, you even have a nickname for me, huh? You must really like me." she said gleefully. I cursed, regretting it already, and turned around to go back inside, with the brat following me. "Hmm, maybe I should come up with a nickname for you too, just to make it fair! Oh, wait, didn't I dub you Dracula already?"

_Jashin dammit. What did I get myself into now?_

* * *

><p><strong>Kakuzu<strong>

I'd been reading a book when suddenly that blonde, bratty girl decided to come annoy me. Of course. She couldn't have gone to talk to Deidara, she _had _to come and talk to me. She asked me what book I was reading and at first I tried ignoring her, but she kept persisting. _Kids these days… really piss me off._ I was wondering how angry Leader would get at me if I decided to kill this girl, when she then frowned, and asked me why I was so grumpy all the time. I stared at her, hoping if I'd just glared long enough I would intimidate her into leaving. It didn't work. Dammit.

"None of your business." I grumbled, flipping a page of the novel.

"I bet you'd be happier if you had a girlfriend," she noted dryly, taking a sip from the can of soda she was holding. I stared blankly at her.

"You're too young for me," I stated, and she nearly choked on her drink. Nearly. Too bad she didn't.

"I wasn't talking about me!" she exclaimed, disgusted. "God, someone your own age! Yuck…."

"I don't need a girlfriend." I said annoyed, hoping she'd spontaneously combust already. Unfortunately she didn't.

"Why? You're straight, right?" I sighed deeply, as she seemed genuinely curious.

"Yes."

"Then why not?"

"I'm too old."

"Nonsense!" she exclaimed energetically. "I can easily fix you up with someone! I mean, I know some ladies who're totally into guys with scars, and-"

"No." I snapped, getting really irritated by now, though I had to admit I was kind of amused as well. She pouted for a minute, but then it seemed as if she'd realized something.

"Oooh, I get it!" She smirked. "You're _that _ kind of guy." I was now curious, and put my book away for a second, raising my eyebrows though it wasn't visible to her. "You're like a pimp, right? You have money, and if you wanted to you could easily get some bitches, right? I get it."

I stared at her, truly startled, as I heard Deidara roar with laughter in the background as the sneaky brat had been eavesdropping.

"A _pimp_?" I repeated. She nodded, seeming to be genuine. I considered it for a few seconds. "While prostitution does earn decent money, I prefer bounty hunting. Women are too troublesome, especially whores." I then decided.

"Oh, come on! You should totally be a pimp! With a gangster name and everything! I mean, "Kakuzu the Immortal Pimp"? That sounds _so_ cool!"

"You think pimps are cool?" I asked amused. She frowned.

"Well, no, not really. I was just joking around. But seriously, that name does sound cool." Alex said honestly.

"You are a very strange girl." I commented, but she simply shrugged, as if she was used to hearing that. Then Tobi decided to join the conversation for whatever reason.

"Alex-chan! I'm bored!" he whined, and I rolled my eyes, concentrating back on my book.

"Say Tobi, don't you think Kakuzu would make a good pimp too?" she then suddenly asked. I looked at her, then at the masked idiot, who was then completely silent.

"A pimp?" he repeated, just like I had, and it almost seemed like he wanted to laugh.

"Yeah!" Alex said, nodding her head.

"Tobi thinks Kakuzu-san would make a great pimp!"

"I told you so!"

"I do not care _what_ you idiots say, I'm _not_ going to be a pimp." I growled, trying to ignore them.

"Kakuzu, you're so boring, yeah. Live a little." Deidara decided to be nosy as well and now the three of them were expecting me to admit I would want to be a pimp because… why, again? Why on earth would I want to be a pimp? Bounty-hunting would give me a lot more money than pimping and I didn't have to deal with annoying women the whole time.

"I've been living for ninety-one years, brat. I'm pretty sure I've lived enough." I snapped at him.

"So did you ever get laid?"

"Is that a serious question?"

"Yes."

"Let me rephrase that: are you a moron? Yes, you are a moron. And yes, I did "get laid" as you idiots put it. Now leave me be." All three of them seemed completely shocked when hearing this, which was insulting. It wasn't like I'd had these stitches my entire life.

"Really? When was the first time?" Deidara asked with a frown, obviously having a hard time believing it. I glowered at him.

"My sex-life is none of your business." I snarled.

"Wait… you still have a sex-life?"

"…I will kill you if you don't shut up right now."

"Why so interested in _his _sex-life, Deidara?" Alex then asked with a smirk. The bomber scowled at her as Tobi giggled.

"What are you implying, yeah?"

"THAT SENPAI IS GAY!"

"WHAT?" he yelled outraged and embarrassed. "I am _not… _and… EW. NO!"

"I don't know, you seemed to be awfully curious about Kakuzu's-"

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP OR I WILL BLOW YOU INTO PIECES!"

Alex saw he was seriously angry right now, so she made a run for it and Deidara chased her, cussing at her the entire time. I sighed.

_Kids these days…._

* * *

><p><strong>It is dooooooone! <strong>

**That took me a little longer than I wanted. But oh well! PROGRESS ON THE ROMANTIC FRONT! HURRAH!**

**BIG THANKS TO _Good boy-chan, The Ultimate Baka, Bookielovesanimeeee, dettarsvenska, Hanoone, yyh-ygo-fma, Dokuji-Chan, RandomAwesomer101, xXScarlatto-OokamiXx, Happy Crying, Deidara's Dragon, Logarythm, BeneaththeMarquee, Triple T 123, Dust, Mahri, demee, Bree-Chan, SeaDevil, NAILxPOLISH_ and _Narutofan3_! I LOVE YOU GUYS ^_^**

**I always appreciate moar reviewz :D**


	15. Can't think of a title

**THIS SHOULD'VE BEEN UPDATED SUNDAY! But for some reason, the website decided to be a bitch and didn't let me log into my account D:**

**ANYWAY, here you go, I hope this kind of makes up for the late update?**

**Enjoy the next chapter ^_^**

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

I had promised Ella to go check out the witch. Yes, I had. I regretted it deeply, but I had promised and I never broke my promises. It was Wednesday by now, and I had no patience to wait until next Sunday, so I decided to go immediately when I woke up that morning. Deidara wanted to go with me and I was fine with that. What surprised me was that Hidan didn't jump at the opportunity to get outside. I walked downstairs, though still in my PJs as I was too lazy to change. I wasn't paying attention and nearly bumped into Sasuke, who glared. I frowned.

"Watch where you're going." I told him annoyed. Though he was still stronger than me, I was older and I'd be damned if I was going to bow down to some brat when I'd managed to tame the most bloodthirsty maniac in the house! Well, alright, not "tame", but still, you get the point.

"Hn," he simply replied irritably and walked past me, obviously grumpy. I looked at Itachi, who was sitting on the couch, also watching Sasuke stomp off. They should really talk their issues out. These brother-issues weren't making Sasuke any happier. I ignored Tobi being strangled by Deidara, got to the kitchen and saw Ella cooking. She was cooking again! Don't know what happened to cheer her up a little, but I was relieved. She was frying some eggs and turned around to look at me.

"Good morning." she greeted me serenely, and continued baking the eggs. Alex was helping her out by setting the table, and I lazily sat down against the table, right next to Kakashi who'd been reading his book. I yawned loudly, stretching and relaxing in my seat. I wondered where the others were.

"Morning." I mumbled while rubbing my eyes out. When I asked Alex where the other members were or why they weren't eating, she informed me they had already eaten two hours ago. I glanced at Kakashi, who either was too lazy to move or hadn't eaten either.

"Suze?" Ella then asked me, and I looked up at her. "Do you mind if I go look for the old lady instead?" I blinked, a little surprised hearing that.

"No, but… why the sudden change of heart, though?" She shrugged.

"I just figured it would be a good way to get some fresh air." She did have a point. "Besides, I already asked Pain and he gave permission." she then explained while putting the eggs and bacon on my late.

"Oh. You're going to go by yourself?"

"Of course not, silly. Itachi is coming with me."

"Right. Just be careful."

"Suzan!" I was right in the middle of eating my bacon when I heard Deidara call for me. I huffed annoyed and walked to the living room, where I saw them messing around with my laptop. How did it get out of my room and down there? I glared at Deidara. "Hey, I didn't steal it, yeah. Blame Tobi!" I rolled my eyes. By this point Sasuke had also returned and was sitting on the armchair, while Itachi was on the couch next to Deidara and Tobi.

"What is it?" I then asked grouchily, considering I wasn't a morning person.

"Tobi wants to know how this thing works!" the masked menace exclaimed. I sat down between Deidara and Itachi, and grabbed the laptop from the blond.

"It's just your ordinary computer. You have things like these in your own universe, except we can do a lot more with… oh!" I smirked widely, the most sinister and evil plan of all plans having popped up into my head. Oh _yes. _Payback!

"Suzan-chan? Why are you smiling like that?" Tobi asked innocently. Both Deidara and Itachi were now looking at me, the former with obvious suspicion on his face.

"I just remembered something. Have you guys ever heard of something called _fan art?_"

A minute of explaining later, all were rather curious and I couldn't wait to show them. After all the shit I'd been going through for the past few days I felt like I deserved a little laugh. Plus, I would be sure to get some payback from Tobi.

"Tobi wants to see!" he said energetically, and I went to search for some images on Google.

"Alright then, let's see…." I typed in his name and immediately pictures of the masked man showed up. "There, happy?" I said, as there were quite a few very good drawings where he was unmasked and, quite frankly, looked hot. Not at all elderly which was what he actually looked like. "Fans think you're totally attractive."

"Yay!" Tobi cheered happily. But I wasn't about to let him off the hook. While I avoided pictures that showed his Sharingan, I found a picture with him. And Deidara. To put in bluntly, they were naked, and making out. _YES! Win for me. _"Wait, what… what is… that…." He fell silent when I zoomed in the picture. I cherished the moment. Deidara glanced at it once. Then he exploded.

"WHAT THE HELL? WHAT IS THAT ABOUT, YEAH? THAT'S FUCKING DISGUSTING!" Itachi's face was deadpan, Sasuke seemed disturbed and I was laughing my ass off. At the same time Kakashi walked in, and I told him what we were doing. Then Tobi clicked the picture away before I could react, and I'm fairly certain that if other people hadn't been there, he would've glared with his Sharingan at me. But right now I was just enjoying watching him suffer.

"That was a very naughty picture!" he instead cried unhappily. To make it up to Deidara, though, I showed him some pictures where he looked totally manly.

"See? You can be hot too." I told him with a grin, and he chuckled at hearing that, calming down.

I then just looked for random Akatsuki pictures, when I saw one that was… it was just _wrong. _Tobi gasped dramatically (though I think he genuinely was disgusted), Deidara made a repulsed face and Kakashi didn't even bother looking as he knew from our expressions it was horrible.I looked at Itachi, who saw the fan art and cringed for a split-second. Itachi, _cringing_!

"I'm sorry!" I said sincerely. I hadn't meant for him to see something like that.

"That was… very disturbing,"

"I know, I didn't mean to – Sasuke!" The younger Uchiha snatched the laptop away from me and looked at the picture. Then he paled, and nearly dropped the computer. I took it away from him, and quickly clicked away the drawing of him and Itachi, and let's just say it was _so _inappropriate and definitely not defined as "_brotherly" _love.

"Oh for…." Sasuke sat back down in the chair, holding a hand to his mouth as if he was nauseous. Itachi sighed deeply, and simply rubbed his forehead, clearly still disturbed. "Whoever… _whoever_ made that drawing is on my kill list." he spat, the venom dripping from his voice.

"Good luck finding them, yeah." Deidara said dryly, receiving a fierce glare from him.

That's when Hidan barged in, probably had been hanging out in the backyard, followed by Kakuzu, Ella and Alex. Ella sat down next to Itachi, and seeing he was rather disturbed, got worried.

"What's wrong?" she asked. He glanced at her.

"It's best if you don't know." he responded, regaining his composure. I stared at the two for a while, and noticed Itachi had relaxed almost instantly when she'd started talking to him. I made a mental note of this observation, but then my pondering got interrupted.

"Huh? Hey, I wanna know! What are you doing?" Hidan asked curiously, peeking over to the computer screen. I explained and he shoved Deidara off the couch, sitting next to me instead. Deidara glared daggers at him and I was a little surprised, as he wasn't usually as rough with the bomber like he was now. I made a mental note of this as well.

"Mama didn't teach you manners?" I then remarked teasingly as Deidara got up and grumpily sat down on the other armchair instead.

"Shut up," Hidan huffed, and I searched up some pictures of him, and most of them were just showing off skin and I had to admit, they were even hotter than Deidara's drawings. I suddenly felt my cheeks heating up and tried not to look at most of them, and I could see Hidan staring at me from the corners of my eyes but I didn't look back, considering I was blushing like a maniac. I hadn't felt this uncomfortable, warm feeling when I'd stared at Deidara's nearly half-naked pictures. If this meant what I thought it meant, then it was bad.

Kakuzu wasn't interested in the least until Hidan saw a drawing of him and his partner and he freaked out.

"THE FUCK?" he screamed, pointing at the screen. I couldn't help but laugh at his reaction. "WHO MADE THIS SHIT? I'LL FUCKING KILL THEM! I ain't gay! I AIN'T GAY! I'M TOTALLY INTO CHICKS, ALRIGHT?" Now Kakuzu looked over, and his expression darkened. He didn't even have to scream like Hidan did, the pure killing intent radiating from him was enough to make me flinch and try to take distance. Deidara, however, was giggling uncontrollably.

"Woah, Hidan! I didn't think you two were like _that. _Must be some kinky sex-" Before Kakuzu could even attempt to kill Deidara, Hidan had already lunged at him and they were rolling over the floor, fighting and wrestling, trying to beat each other to death. I was wondering where all this hostility between them came from, when Ella suddenly got up from her seat.

"Where are you going?" I asked with a frown.

"To look for the old lady," Ella said "I can't stay here all day." I watched her and Itachi silently leave, and I saw Sasuke glaring after her. But the yelling of the guys quickly drew my attention again, as I tried to keep them from killing each other. Tobi wasn't helping much by "panicking" and Kakashi and Kakuzu were entirely indifferent to the whole ordeal. Just great. Leave me alone with these psychopaths, why don't you, Ella?

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

The walk over to the mall was a little weird in the beginning, as I wasn't too sure what to talk about, but eventually Itachi started asking me questions about my world. He'd probably noticed I'd been getting uncomfortable with the silence. I gladly answered them and he really did seem curious. At first I think he thought this world was a lot more peaceful than his, but I quickly got rid of that illusion for him. As such, the subject of our conversation wasn't a cheery one.

"Believe me when I say the wars here have been a lot more brutal than in your universe." I said when it seemed that he didn't really believe me. "Did you ever have a dictator that killed six million people in a matter of a few years?"

"Six million?" Itachi repeated.

"Yes, around six million. All because those people had a different religion he disagreed with." He seemed taken aback by this, and I sighed. "People in your world… the ones that would be considered villains, I've noticed they all do actually strive for peace. The way they're going about it is wrong, but their goal is a good one. The villains in this world however, aren't like that. They're corrupt, hungry for money and power, and they'll gladly start wars over it whenever they can. They don't care children and their mothers are being killed, as long as they can buy a bigger house to live in." I explained, bitterness in my voice. I despised anything that had to do with war or fighting.

"You certainly don't seem happy with this world." he observed, and I bit my lip, looking away, staring at some kids playing catch across the street.

"Sometimes I wonder why I still care." I muttered, and as I looked back at Itachi again he seemed a little alarmed by hearing this.

"Please don't ever stop caring." he said with a slight frown. "Empathy is one of the things that makes us human. Don't let go of that. It's also one of your best qualities." I stared up at him, a little unsure how to respond to that.

"It… it is?" I said a little stunned.

"Of course. You're a very loving person, Ella. Probably one of the kindest people I've ever met." This compliment really surprised me, though it was a nice surprise. I smiled happily at him, and was so distracted I bumped right into an elderly lady. She would've fallen down had I not grabbed her arm just in time.

"I'm sorry miss!" I said apologetically, but then realized it was the person I'd been looking for. Yep, she had the distinct leather, purple purse. I slowly released her arm and glanced at Itachi, who seemed instantly on guard.

"Oh, that's okay, dear! Though I am kind of curious," the old lady spoke, her piercing blue eyes staring right into mine "why do you insist on capturing me? Just for my power?" It seemed like this lady was rather straight-forward. I wasn't sure how to respond to that. She could read our minds, couldn't she? So this was probably to test our honesty. But if I told the truth we'd be in trouble, so either way we'd lost already, unless Itachi was fast enough to try to put her in a genjutsu. I decided to stay silent. Suddenly the lady looked at Itachi. "Don't bother trying to do anything, boy. Those eyes won't work on me." He frowned but didn't respond. His eyes wouldn't work? Well, there went our only chance.

I now noticed that all the people around us had just… disappeared. Where was everyone?

"Uhm… I actually just wanted to talk." I eventually said while carefully taking a step back. Didn't want to get turned into an animal, right?

"Of course you do. But afterwards this boy will try to capture me, won't he? Orders from his leader, after all." She readjusted her glasses before continuing, giving me a sharp look. "I don't think I want to wait for that to happen, so what should I do with you two, hmm? I could turn you into animals… oh my, you are a stubborn one, aren't you, boy? I told you, those cursed eyes won't work on me." I now looked over to Itachi, and he seemed startled for a second, but then the scowl returned to his face.

"What's wrong?" I asked distressed. He didn't reply. He didn't even move or so much as blink. Was he frozen? I took another two steps back. This was very bad. How was I supposed to get us out of this one? Maybe if I acted cute and gave her puppy eyes she'd let us go. Highly doubtful, though worth a shot.

"Could you… uhm, perhaps consider letting us go, miss?" I asked politely, trying to be as charming as possible.

"My, aren't you just lovely?" the old lady said amused. "Oh yes, you have plenty of charm. But that trick won't work on me, I'm afraid!" I scowled. _Rats. _"Like I was saying, I could transform you, but I think I have something more fitting in mind after hearing your little conversation. Of course, it won't last longer than a day."

I was about to ask what she was talking about, when there was a blinding, red light and for another second everything was black. It felt like I was floating for a while, but then I felt the ground beneath my feet again. Wait, did I grow taller? And suddenly I felt heavier. What had happened? My sight returned. Everything was suddenly much sharper and clearer to me, and I looked down.

Wait… wait a second… where… where did my breasts go? And what happened to my clothes?

Confused and disoriented, I looked around, and then stared right at _myself_. I was standing just two feet away. Was I looking in a mirror, or something? What was going on? I stared at my hands. Or what I'd thought had been my hands. Except, you know, _those weren't my hands._ The clothes I was wearing weren't mine either! They were Itachi's. Which meant… _Oh… oh no… did we… swap bodies?_ My body was staring back at me, shocked, but then I saw myself sigh, _heard _myself sigh, and it was obvious that was what had happened.

"Are you…." I put a hand on my mouth, or rather, Itachi's mouth, when I heard his voice come out of it. This was a real shock. Not to mention incredibly uncomfortable and awkward.

"Unfortunately, yes." Itachi responded in my voice. He seemed a lot calmer about this than I was.

"Oh." was all that I could say. I was absolutely baffled. There was a silence, in which I tried to process that I was actually in Itachi's body – and good lord, that sounded so _weird. _

Why did I have to insist on searching for that lady, again?

* * *

><p><strong>Itachi<strong>

"It will only last a day. Let's return." I eventually decided. This was not what I'd expected. But then again, we hadn't known the full extent of that old woman's powers, so I suppose I should have anticipated something like this. Capturing someone as powerful as her was going to prove nearly impossible. If I couldn't do it, the only one who might be able to was either the leader, and even he only stood somewhat of a chance, or Tobi. Not to mention that this woman didn't have chakra. I don't know what kind of energy it was that flowed through her veins, but it wasn't anything I'd ever seen before.

I looked over at Ella and saw she was trying to walk like what one would consider as "manly", probably so she wouldn't embarrass me, but quite frankly it looked ridiculous and I'd rather have her swaying her hips… er, _my _ hips (that sounded very odd) than what she was doing at the moment. Almost as if she was marching. "Act natural, it's fine." I tried reassuring her, and even though it was my body, it was rather amusing to watch. She looked away, a little discomforted.

"Well, okay, but… I mean, isn't this awkward to you at all?" she asked me, and decided to tell her the truth.

"It is incredibly awkward, actually." Now I watched her walk like she normally did, and even though it was rather feminine, it could've been worse. I noticed the people who'd disappeared earlier return to the streets as if nothing had happened. That old woman somehow had the ability to alter reality, then? That was quite disconcerting. I glanced at Ella again after a while, and noticed her absently twirling my hair around her finger. She noticed me staring and quickly stopped, as if she were a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

"Sorry, I couldn't help myself." she mumbled softly, looking away shyly. It was endearing, and I felt a smile creep up my lips before I could even stop it. Then it disappeared as quick as it had come. After all, I could not let myself get attached to anyone here; we would leave this world either way in the end. But maybe it was already too late for me, since I'd already decided I saw her as a friend. The most I could do at the moment was try to distance myself from her, or at least make sure that friends were all we would ever be. Though neither her charming behavior nor her affectionate personality were helping much. Not to mention, pretending to be a cold-blooded killer wouldn't work on her. She already knew the real me.

But the real issue was going to be Sasuke. I couldn't imagine my little brother being at all happy with what had happened. It seemed he disliked Ella, which I couldn't appreciate much, but I understood why. Though I couldn't say I was at all happy with what path he'd chosen for himself. As I pondered what my next move would be, a voice interrupted my train of thoughts.

"Ella!" We both turned around and I saw a young man with remarkable green eyes walking towards me, seeming to happy to see me, or rather, to see Ella. I looked at Ella herself, who was clearly surprised.

"That's… that's Jack!" she whispered to me, a little panicked.

"Jack?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. The name didn't ring a bell.

"Uhm… we were dating." she explained awkwardly as he approached us. I stared at the young man intently, then realized I would probably have to act like Ella so he wouldn't get suspicious and make this harder than it already was. I put on a smile and acted happy to see him.

"Hey, it's been so long!" he said cheerfully, standing closer to me than I would've wanted. I endured it.

"It has. How have you been?" I asked politely, and he eyed me with worry, completely ignoring the real Ella, who seemed to feel rather uneasy.

"I'm fine. I heard what happened to… to your family." he said, trying to be sympathetic. I would've believed him, had he not grabbed my hands and inched even closer. Had he truly cared, he wouldn't have used the tragic death of Ella's family as a way to get even closer to her. Not to mention I don't recall Ella ever getting a single phone call from this man, and I didn't like the look in his eyes. "If you want to talk about it, you know I'm here for you, right?" I decided then, that this person was incredibly irritating.

"Is that so?" I responded coolly. He seemed surprised, and put an arm around my shoulders. Never mind the fact this was a very uncomfortable position, it only frustrated me even more. He didn't truly care for Ella, that much was obvious. Of course, considering how naïve Ella could be, I could understand how he would've fooled her.

"Of course! How about we stop by my house right now? I don't have anything else to do at the moment." This person _really _ticked me off. I rather roughly pushed his arm away, and looked at Ella, who'd been ignored all this time.

"Sorry, but I already have plans." I said, my voice turning cold. To me it was easy to see this man didn't have any other intentions but to use Ella as a plaything. Jack now also looked at Ella.

"Oh. Who's this?" he asked, clearly unhappy.

"Uh… my name is Isaac." Ella muttered a little reluctantly. Hearing that name reminded me of Ella's mother. What was it she'd called me again? "Prince charming", if I remembered correctly. She'd obviously been quite impressed by me, and she'd seemed like a very kind lady, though strict. I felt very badly for her, and seeing what it had done to her. Now I was just glad she was recovering. Jack glared at her, then looked at me.

"Right. So, another time then?" I was getting angry by now. Usually, this shouldn't have bothered me. If this had been about anyone else, I don't think I would've cared as much. But, I suppose I couldn't deny I felt protective of Ella by now, and this person _definitely_ wasn't worthy of her.

"No. Quite frankly, I don't want anything to do with you anymore." I stated icily. "Goodbye, then." I started walking away, ignoring Ella's gazing at me and Jack's stunned look. Maybe I shouldn't have done that, but it had been impulsively. However, she was an adult, and was smart enough to make her own decisions and I should've stayed out of it. In fact, if I remembered correctly, she was twenty-two, now, wasn't she? A year older than me. I didn't even look back, as I knew Ella was following me by now.

"Why did you do that?" she eventually asked me, obviously not happy. I thought about how to respond for a while, and found that I couldn't be anything but honest towards her.

"I apologize. I said it on whim."

"On a whim? You mean, without thinking?" she repeated, baffled. "_You_ said something on a whim?"

"Is it that hard to believe?"

"Well, yes." I noticed her staring at me now. "I never knew you could be tactless." she said, seeming to be a little amused by it.

"Neither did I," I muttered contemplatively "but I suppose I can be quite indiscreet when it's about certain… things."

"Certain things? Like what?" Ella asked curiously. I glanced at her, and wondered when I'd started to become this talkative. I suppose she had that effect on people. Or maybe just me? That was disquieting, considering I was supposed to take distance from her, not grow closer.

"Never mind. In any case, it was necessary. It's best if you stay away from other people as long as we are here." I decided with a sigh. The rest of the walk was silent. I suppose she was too busy adjusting to my body to really talk anymore. She was studying my hands as if she still couldn't believe it. I, on the other hand, tried to pay as little attention to her body as I could, as staring at it would just be rude and improper. I made the mistake to glance down at her body once and instantly felt disturbed by my own behavior. This might be harder than I thought it would be.

* * *

><p><strong>Alex<strong>

While Suzan was keeping the guys occupied with a movie so they wouldn't kill each other, I decided to grab a snack as there was nothing better to do. When I opened the fridge, however, I couldn't find anything that interested me. I sighed and sat down at the table, wondering what to do next, when the door opened and Tobi walked in. I sat up straight, on my guard. Of course I didn't trust the guy for one bit. He made Ella snap, after all, and knowing him he was here to annoy me now. But I decided I wasn't going to fall for his silly mind tricks and tried to ignore him.

"Alex-chan?" he whined. I pretended to be interested in the smooth surface of the table. "Alex-chan. Alex-chan! ALEX-CHA-"

"WHAT?"

"Hi!"

"...Hi, Tobi." He sat down next to me on the chair, and there was a silence for a few seconds. I tried my best not to look at him.

"So, what's your story?" When he suddenly spoke up in his real voice I nearly fell out my chair. _He's a real prick, huh?_

"My story? It's… complicated." I decided.

"You don't want to share, then?"

"Er, no." I said sternly, folding my arms. He let out a long sigh.

"Hmm… well, you're rather boring, aren't you?"

"Excuse me?" I leaned back in my seat when I saw his Sharingan glistening in the light, and started feeling rather uneasy. Tobi put a hand under his chin, staring at me intently.

"There's not much to you, I suppose. Ella is distinctly kind, loving and fragile, Suzan is analytical, rude and strong, but you… you're just your average kid." I scowled at him. He wouldn't be saying this if he knew what kind of job I had. "No, actually, you're a brat. Still a child, with all those pranks of yours."

"You don't know me!" I protested, insulted. "There's more to me than just those pranks. If you hadn't noticed, I'm smarter than your average brat, alright?"

"Well then, correction: you're a know-it-all brat." he said apathetically. "Fact is, I can't seem to find anything interesting about your personality." He leaned back in his seat, putting his hands behind his head.

"I… I don't care!" I said with a glare.

"I thought, since I'd been toying around with the other two girls, you were next, but I can't find anything that would make you go crazy. You're really that dull, I suppose."

"_Dull_?" I repeated, shocked and infuriated.

"Hmm? Why, of course. Can you name one quality of yours that might interest me?" Tobi then said, leaning forward. I fell silent for a while.

"How should I know what might interest you?" I retorted then, avoiding the question. He chuckled.

"So I take it you don't?"

"Just… shut up. I know what you're trying to do, dammit, and it's not going to work." I huffed, getting up and walking to the fridge to get some soda.

"Oh? I was right. You _are _boring. I don't think anyone would notice it if you disappeared. I doubt even Ella or Suzan would miss you much."

"Shut up!" I hissed, squeezing in my can of soda. But I'd started having doubts already. Who'd really miss me if I disappeared and never came back? Ella and Suzan… would they care? Was I that forgettable? I mean, the two seemed happy enough with just each other as friends. Sometimes, I felt like I didn't fit in their perfect little picture. I didn't have anyone else that really cared for me. My guardian simply wanted me to make money. He couldn't care less about my emotional stability. Because of this, you can imagine I had some psychological issues. Suzan had tried to address them, but I'd time and time again bluntly refused to talk about them.

"Can't handle the truth?" He was mocking me now, and I felt an intense rage welling up inside of me. "I can't see why you're even still here, when it's obvious that _no one_ cares. You should-" He got me. I broke.

My opened can of soda flew right through him as I threw it as hard as possible. It fell down on the ground. He didn't move an inch, and I felt like I was ready to kill him. I wasn't one to get angry quickly, unless someone said something that really hit home. And when I got angry, I couldn't control myself. I'd gotten in my fair share of street fights, none of them had been pretty for me nor my opponent. The only reason I wasn't lunging at him now, was because I still had that little voice of reason in the back of my head that told me he could snap me in half if he wanted to.

Then he started laughing, though it quickly turned into goofy laughter when Suzan rushed into the kitchen, followed by Kakashi. He kept laughing, kept mocking me with it, and the voice of reason disappeared.

"Alex, calm down!" Suzan yelled, holding me back as I'd wanted to tear him apart. I'd even wanted to run towards him, had been halfway there, shoving the chair roughly out of the way as it had fallen down on the ground with a loud noise, when she'd managed to hold me back. Tobi didn't even flinch. Even if I wanted to scream at him, no sound would escape my lips, that's how furious I'd gotten. "Oh for fuck's sake!" Suzan shoved me against the wall and slapped me across the face. "Get a hold of yourself, would you?" I saw her staring at me, and finally started calming down.

_Goddammit… he got me._

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

I studied Alex's facial expression carefully. She seemed distraught, frustrated and most of all: shocked. I knew she had serious anger issues. I didn't know why and how they'd gotten this severe, but I knew they weren't half-assed like mine. No, I was impulsive and impatient, at most. Alex had no control over her anger once it got the best of her. She'd told me about how she'd once nearly stabbed a person, had her guardian not been there to stop her. Afterwards, she'd said she hadn't remembered much, as if everything had went by in a blur.

She needed to get some sort of help for that, but she was stubborn, said she'd figure it out herself. A typical teenager. I tried calming her down and glanced at Tobi. I knew he was most likely smirking underneath that mask. Of course, considering there wasn't much entertainment here, he'd obviously decided that mentally torturing us was a good way to keep himself from getting bored.

I led Alex outside, to the backyard, thinking fresh air would do her some good.

"I'd like to be alone for a moment." she requested quietly. I nodded and went back inside. Tobi had left the kitchen.

"How is she?" Kakashi asked, leaning against the table.

"She'll be alright." I stated simply, and decided to go take a shower. Alex would be fine, eventually. I walked through the living room, where the most of the guys were playing cards, and went upstairs to the first floor, where I nearly bumped into Sasuke, for the second time that day. What was it with me and running into this kid today? He seemed pretty pissed.

"Watch it." he snapped. I frowned, confused.

"You're grumpier than usual."

"It's none of your business." Sasuke huffed, and I folded my arms.

"Now listen here, you. You're staying in my house and your grumpiness isn't doing much good for the sphere around here. So either go resolve whatever stupid issues you have or at least-" He shoved me against a wall, and in hindsight, I probably shouldn't have called his issues "stupid".

"Shut up." he snarled at me.

"Make me." I couldn't help but say that and for a second I wanted to smack myself for being this dumb. Obviously this kid was the most emotionally unstable, and what do I do? I'm taunting him. Yes, very smart.

"I'm tempted to, alright." He glared at me for a moment longer before he released me and stalked off to the second floor, probably going to hang out on the roof. I sighed, and then turned to the hallway to finally see what was the cause of his behavior. Itachi, of course. But then I saw the openly worried and startled look on his face, which surprised me even more. Ella was standing right behind him, and she had a perfectly blank expression on her face. What the hell?

"Hi, Suze." Itachi then addressed me. Alright, there was definitely something out of place here, considering Itachi would _never _say "Suze" to me. Nor would he smile like that.

"We swapped bodies." Ella then coolly stated.

Aha. Well, that explained everything. I couldn't imagine Sasuke being happy to have Ella inside… okay, I'm stopping right there before it goes wrong.

"Oh… so the witch can do that too?"

"Unfortunately."

"Right." There was an awkward silence as I stared at the two.

"Let's go explain to the others," Ella suggested, I mean, er, Ella in Itachi's body. You… get what I'm saying, right? The two left, and I was alone again. But of course I couldn't have two minutes of silence. As I opened the door to my room, my phone went off. Being the idiot I was, I didn't check for caller ID again and picked up.

"_Hello?"_

I inhaled sharply, as I recognized the voice of my father.

* * *

><p><strong>There you go! Damn… stupid… website... THIS SHOULD'VE BEEN UP YESTERDAY D:<strong>

**I know, I know, not much of an eventful chapter… but it's a build-up for the next chapter, which I'll upload tomorrow if this stupid fucking website will let me.**

**Anyway, tomorrow is Valentine's Day, so you know what that means….**

**ROMANCE CHAPTER! HURRAH! Which will be a lot more eventful. Ehm... not on a Mary Sue level, of course ^_^'**

**Alright, guys, so I need your help with this one.**** Right now, I'm completely stuck between KakashixElla and ItachixElla. I seriously for the life of me cannot figure out which pairing would work best. So drop in the reviews which one you'd rather have, and why, so I can understand your choice, okay? Thanks! :D**

**BIG THANKS TO _RandomAwesomer101, Logarythm, yyh-ygo-fma, Bree-Chan, Bookielovesanimeeee, dettarsvenska, Good boy-chan, Dust, Deidara's Dragon, Triple T 123, Mahri, The Ultimate Baka, Hanoone, ktizle13, Lost Location, xShadowAllstarx, Dokuji-Chan, Rakiku Inoe, Gin-Senpai, Marskatr, Woodshrew, TheVGMAAddict, mytwistedview_ and _SeaDevil_! BEST PEOPLE EVER.**

**Don't forget to review! ^_^**


	16. Deidara needs some lovin'

**I UPDATEDEDEDED!**

**Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! :D**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

"Wait, okay, let me get this shit straight," Hidan started as he stared at the both of us, a wide grin on his face "he is_ inside_ of you?"

I turned red almost instantly, and glanced at Itachi who was rubbing his – er, my – forehead.

"Hidan, it's not funny!"

"Damn right it's not funny, it's fucking awesome."

Nearly everyone had basically gathered in the living room, they were on the couch and sitting on the chairs. Me and Itachi were standing in the middle of the room, and I started wondering if we should've kept it a secret. Then I realized they would've found out either way, considering I was awful at acting. Most of them were simply surprised or a little confused as to how they should deal with it, but of course Hidan had to crack jokes about it which only served to embarrass me. I then decided to try and ignore him as much as possible, and looked at Pain. He seemed to be lost in his own thoughts for a second, when he looked up at me again.

"I've decided. I'll take Suzan out tomorrow to the mall, and see if I can capture this woman." he stated, and looked at Hidan. "Go tell Suzan." he ordered. Hidan shot him a glare but left either way. "You two… well, you'll have to deal with this for the time being. It'll only last a day."

Well, that was just about the most obvious order he could've given us. I looked around the room, and noticed Sasuke glowering at me, as he was leaning against the wall, his arms folded.

"So… what's it like to have boobs, yeah?" I heard Deidara ask Itachi, rather crassly. They were standing a few feet away from me but I could still heard them. The Uchiha sighed deeply, clearly uncomfortable with that question, then saw me looking and shot Deidara a subtle glare. Of course the bomber was completely oblivious to the fact I could hear him. "Come on, I seriously want to know. Like, does your back hurt? I mean, Ella's are pretty big and…." he stopped mid-sentence when he saw me staring. I scowled at him.

"Deidara?"

"Uhm… yeah?"

"Would you please stop talking about my breasts?"

"…Sorry."

I then decided to do what I probably should've done a while ago; have a chat with Sasuke. I really couldn't stand his glaring any longer so it had to stop. I confidently walked towards him, and he raised his eyebrows, a little surprised. I stood in front of him, and he eyed me suspiciously but he didn't move an inch.

"What do you want?" he eventually asked with his signature glare.

"I'd like to talk." I responded, a little irritated by now.

"Hn. I have nothing to say to you." he snapped, turning his head away from me. What, exactly, had I done to deserve such scorn?

"But I have something to say to _you, _so please listen to me." This seemed to have really ticked him off, because he stood up straight now, looking me straight in the eyes. I saw hatred, but also sadness, buried deep down inside. My expression softened a little. "I don't know what I did to make you this angry at me, and I'd appreciate it if you just-"

"You didn't do anything," Sasuke interrupted me brusquely "actually, your entire existence simply annoys me. So unless you're willing to kill yourself I can't see this issue being resolved any time soon." I fell completely silent as I gazed at him. He was being serious. I narrowed my eyes, which had apparently been the wrong thing to do because he snapped. "You… don't you dare look at me with those eyes! They're not even yours to begin with!" I flinched, taking a step back at his sudden outburst.

"It… it wasn't like I wanted this to happen!" I defended myself, but he would hear none of it.

"I don't care! Ever since I've been here, you've been hanging around him the whole time, and now, now this! Who do you think you are?" he hissed at me. "I'm his _family_, and yet he…." He stopped mid-sentence, as if he himself wasn't sure what he wanted to say anymore.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, genuinely puzzled. Sasuke glanced once behind me, and I followed his look. Itachi was standing a few feet behind me, having listened to the conversation, obviously. There was an unreadable expression on his face. Unreadable for me, at least. It seems Sasuke seemed to understand it perfectly, though.

"Never mind." he snarled, upset, and curtly walked past me and Itachi, towards the backyard. Well, that was wasted effort. That kid was really stubborn. _Though seriously, what just happened? _I frowned, puzzled with the entire situation. As if there was something really big I was missing here, and there probably was. I could be a rather oblivious person at times.

"Ella, you look tired. Perhaps you should get some sleep." Itachi suggested in a manner that sounded actually more like an order than a suggestion. I nodded slowly.

"I'll go up to my room, then." I mumbled, and went upstairs, leaving him behind. I did feel slightly weary. When I got up to my room on the second floor, I stared at my bed for a long time. Then I walked over to the mirror. I saw Itachi's face staring right back at me and started feeling uncomfortable again. Not to mention the fact that I had _no clue _how to deactivate that Sharingan. I studied his features carefully, and he looked so… tired.

_That shouldn't be surprising, considering… considering…. _I couldn't finish my sentence. I dared not to. I started thinking about it, all he'd done, for what felt like an eternity. I'd seen it in the manga, I knew he'd done it, and yet it felt so surreal to me. How? How could _possibly_ take a sword and slit the throat of your own family? It was almost as if I refused to believe it. I looked down at his hands. These hands had been soaked in blood, once. I started to feel sick, and looked up, staring back into the mirror again, into the reflection of his eyes. _That's the face of a murderer, _a tiny voice in my head told me.

I shook my head fervently, as if that would make the truth go away. It sent a chill down my spine, wondering how he'd killed off his feelings like that. Was this the same person I considered my friend? I turned away from the mirror and sat down on my bed, cursing that witch. I'd never thought about it much, but now I was actually inside his body, there was no running away from it. If only that witch had transformed me into an animal, then I probably would've never had to think about it. Now my entire outlook on Itachi being like a perfect, good and kind person had been _ruined._

"Hello there, Itachi-san." I looked up and saw Kakashi standing in my room.

"Very funny." I muttered sarcastically. Of course he immediately noticed there was something wrong, I wasn't a very sarcastic person after all. He closed the door behind him and sat down on my bureau chair, staring at me, as if he was expecting some sort of sob story about what was happening to me.

"You look… dejected." he eventually spoke up. "Don't like being a man?"

"That's not it."

"Care to enlighten me, then?"

"Not… well, I mean… I suppose..." He was staring at me so intently it felt like I couldn't do anything but spill my heart out. He listened attentively the entire time, not interrupting once until I was completely done with describing the doubts I had about Itachi. Even then he remained silent for a few more seconds, before he finally sighed and said:

"Ella, why didn't you think of this the moment the man got teleported into your house?"

I stared. Then blinked. And stared some more.

"Uhm… I forgot?"

"You _forgot_ that he murdered his entire clan?" Kakashi repeated, half-amused, half-baffled. "Ella, really, even for you that's rather stupid."

"I know! I just… I don't know, maybe, blocked it out, subconsciously?" I said, though I was questioning myself more than asking him a question. Kakashi pondered this for a moment, then shrugged.

"In any case, the important thing is that you er, realized it, albeit it's rather late. So, what's the problem?" I gaped at him.

"What do you mean "what's the problem"? Isn't it obvious? He… like, killed his family!" Kakashi lazily leaned on his right hand, not very impressed.

"You do realize he did it to prevent a war that could've potentially killed thousands?"

"W-well, yes but… I mean, when I think about how… how my own family died… I just wonder, how can anyone do something that horrible?" I asked as I leaned back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. There was a silence, and I frowned, looking back at Kakashi again, who seemed to have been zoning out a little.

"What? Oh, you wanted me to answer that?"

"I'm really not in the mood for jokes."

"Sorry. But honestly, I have no clue. It certainly took its toll from him, and I doubt reuniting with Sasuke did him much good either." I suppose there was truth in that, but my question still remained unanswered and I was dissatisfied. He probably noticed this. "Sulking about it isn't going to help. Want to play some chess instead?" he suggested cheerfully. I shook my head.

"I don't feel like using my head right now."

"So instead you're going to sit here staring at the ceiling like a zombie for the rest of the day?"

"Why must you pester me like this?"

"You just make it way too easy for me."

"So it's my fault?"

"Yes."

"…You're unbelievable."

"Thank you."

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

"Why are you calling me?" The tone in my voice was cold as I responded to the man I hadn't seen in years. My father, who was on the verge of death. I could hear it, the coughing fits. They sounded painful alright. But I couldn't let myself get soft now. I'd made a decision and I would stick to it. This person hadn't cared about me when I'd been there for him, so I would return the favor now. He'd realize how far he'd pushed his only child away. And yet, I felt a stinging pain in my chest, even after all these years.

"_Suzan… don't be like that. I… I just wanted to… to see you, before…." _Another coughing fit interrupted his sentence, but we both knew what he'd wanted to say. I clenched my hand into a fist, getting so frustrated with myself. I should be through with them. I shouldn't care anymore. So why was I hurting like this? I took a deep breath before I answered.

"No. I don't care. You had your chances and you blew them all." I said harshly, pacing up and down in my room. There was a silence, before my father bitterly replied.

"_I didn't raise you like this." _

"That's right, because you didn't raise me at all."

"_Suzan, please," _he started begging now _"I want to see your face at least, for one last time, please let me…." _He started coughing again. I was biting my lip so hard it had started bleeding, my nails painfully digging themselves in the palm of my hand.

"I can't." I stated, trying to sound as indifferent as possible. "I simply can't. You and mother can die alone, because I won't be there on your death beds. You brought this on yourselves. I don't regret a thing."

It did me good, knowing father hadn't changed. He started screaming in rage through the phone, and so I felt like I'd done the right thing, rejecting him like that. He really was still a tyrant. He screamed and yelled, coughing through his sentences, but I wasn't listening anymore.

"_Suzan, if you hang up I swear I'll-"_

_Click. _I'd hung up on him. I stood there, in the middle of my room for a long, long time, just staring at the phone in my hand, as I felt the blood from my lip drip down from my chin. I wasn't thinking about anything specifically, I was just staring, my head empty and trying to get rid of any guilt I still might've felt. Then I started thinking again. I thought about the family I'd never had, even when we'd been living in the same house, and it made my heart heavy with grief, knowing I could never get those lost years of my childhood back.

"What are you angsting about?" I looked up to find Hidan standing in my room, leaning sideways against the doorframe. I frowned, putting my phone away.

"None of your business," I answered him coolly, not feeling like talking at the moment.

"Was that your dad?" I blinked. He'd been eavesdropping on my conversation. The conversation that had been supposed to be _private._

"Yes." I huffed, folding my arms and waiting for him to go away. He stayed. I glared at him, irritated, and looked away, when he suddenly approached me. I noticed him staring at my lips and I got uneasy. I tried taking a step back but couldn't, considering the bed was right behind me. "What are you…." He put a finger under my chin, raising my head and I just gazed at him. He seemed fixated on my mouth. I still hadn't noticed my lip was bleeding. He leaned forward, I saw slight hesitation in his eyes, and I was frozen. If he was going to do what I think he was going to do, I was seriously going to attempt to beat the living crap out of him afterwards. Maybe.

I felt his breath on my skin, my heart beating like a wild animal in a cage, and then his tongue licked the blood from my chin and lower lip. He let me go, took a step back and smirked, satisfied by the shocked look on my face.

"What the _fuck_?" was all that came out of my mouth, a deep red blush adorning my cheeks as I gazed at him, touching my lower lip gently. That had felt _so_ weird and good at the same time. He simply shrugged.

"Felt like doing that."

"You're a fucking vampire, aren't you?" This annoyed him.

"No, Sunshine, I'm not a fucking vampire."

"Then stop licking my blood before you lick me dry. This is the second time already." He chuckled, and I realized that had sounded rather weird. I realized I'd nearly completely forgotten about the phone call from my dad. Wait, had that… had that been his intention?

Nah, he wasn't that smart. Or was he? Dammit, sometimes I really couldn't figure this guy out.

"I can't help it if you taste good."

"Now you're just fucking with me." He scowled.

"Well, you're no fun at all." I rolled my eyes and sat down on my bed when suddenly the door opened and Deidara barged in, Tobi clinging to his arm. Hidan instantly glared at him, which was gladly returned by the bomber. "The fuck are you doing here?" Hidan snapped, as if it was _his _room.

"I was bored and wanted to ask Suzan if she wanted to play that video game with me, yeah." Deidara snarled, now looking to me.

"Well, she ain't playing your stupid game because she's hanging out with me right now, got it, punk?" The blond then grabbed my arm and pulled me towards him.

"No, she wants to play the game with me, yeah!" Hidan was glowering at the hand which was holding my arm, as if he wanted it to burst into flames. Instead he jerked me back towards him again, his arms firmly around my shoulders. I squirmed a little, feeling uncomfortable being pressed against him, but he ignored it, and I glared up at him.

"I told you, Deidara-chan, she isn't interested. Piss off."

"Uhm…." Tobi spoke up, and we all looked at him, as he'd let go of Deidara by now. "Why don't we ask Suzan-chan what she wants to do?" The three men looked at me, and I blinked, trying to think up a way to get out of this one.

"Well, how about… me and Deidara play the game but, _but_, Hidan comes downstairs at the same time so we can hang out as well?" I suggested. I watched them have a glaring contest for a few seconds, before both of them consented. I wriggled my way out from under Hidan's arm and went downstairs first. While both guys were my friends, our relationships differed. While Deidara was like my bro, and I think he saw me like a sis too, my bond with Hidan was entirely different. It was… well, more uncomfortable for one, and also more intense.

Deep down I kinda knew exactly what it was, but I wasn't nearly ready enough to admit it to myself. Nope, definitely not.

* * *

><p><strong>Kakashi<strong>

"One round?"

"No."

"When did you get so boring?"

"I'm stuck in a guy's body. Excuse me if I'm not little miss sunshine for once." Ella rolled her eyes at me, and it was apparent she wasn't comfortable with Itachi's body at all. I couldn't really imagine how foreign it must feel for her, though at the moment I just wanted to play chess to get rid of my boredom. At least she didn't seem depressed anymore, which was a relief. A depressed Ella wasn't a pretty sight to behold, after all. She always looked a lot prettier when she smiled.

"Hmm, fine then. But you can't stay locked up in your room forever." I told her as I sat down next to her on the bed, studying a romance novel of hers I'd found in a cupboard. _Twilight_? It certainly seemed interesting. Ella noticed me looking at the book and she flinched. A funny sight, seeing Itachi wince like that. "What's wrong?" I asked with a smirk.

"I wouldn't read that book if I were you." she advised me sincerely, and I frowned, now having gotten curious. "Suzan went on a tirade after she'd finally finished the book and wouldn't stop ranting for over an hour."

"Is it that bad?" I asked, surprised. Ella nodded. "Huh. Now I definitely need to read it."

"Really, I'm saying this for your own good, don't do it."

"What is it about, then?" I eventually asked.

"A vampire and a werewolf fall in love with the same girl. That's basically it. Well, the first two books anyway, I couldn't bear reading the other two." Ella stated dryly.

"Hmm, I'll give it a shot. It can't be that bad, can it?"

Thirty minutes later and I wish I'd heeded Ella's warning. I'd read only a few pages but I could tell it was just horribly written. For once, despite all her naiveté and general simplicity, she'd been very, very much right about the contents of the book. I could safely say it was one of the worst books I'd ever read. I wouldn't even dare call it literature. All I could do was glare at Ella for not having snatched the book away from me. She sighed.

"I told you so."

"No, you said it involved a girl, a vampire and a werewolf. What am I supposed to make of that?" I replied with a frown. Ella shrugged indifferently, though she seemed kind of entertained by my frustration with the novel. I looked at her for a while. "How long did you say this body-swap curse lasted?" I asked.

"Exactly twenty-four hours."

"Good."

"How so?" she asked curiously, and I put the book away as I answered.

"It's kind of awkward talking to you right now. I keep subconsciously thinking you're Itachi instead of Ella."

"Right. It's not like I actually enjoy this either. I mean, I already miss my hair… and my hips." I chuckled.

"Your hips?" Ella blinked.

"Well, yes. I have very nice hips, if you hadn't noticed."

"You do. I mean… er, not that I was looking. Because I wasn't. What I meant to say was, I'm sure that you do have nice uh, hips." Ella started giggling, and I kind of felt like a complete klutz. To be fair, she kind of tricked me.

"Uh-huh, I also like my breasts as well."

"I'm not falling for that one." I said with a frown. Who would've thought I would ever hear the words "hips" and "breasts" coming out of Itachi's mouth? But it did kind of surprise me Ella was so openly teasing me like this. She'd seemed quite naïve to me in every aspect, but I suppose I'd been wrong. I liked it, it was rather amusing seeing a different side of her like this.

"Ella!" I heard Alex call from downstairs. "Can you make dinner?"

"Yeah, I'm coming!" Ella called back. I was a little disappointed, as I always did enjoy talking to her and now our conversation had been interrupted. She got up and walked out, and I followed her as I didn't want to be alone in her room. I really, really wanted her to get her body back soon, though, considering talking to her was rather awkward for me at the moment. Besides, I'd much rather stare at her pretty face than look at Itachi's Sharingan.

* * *

><p><strong>Alex<strong>

There was definitely something going on between those two. You'd have to be blind not to see it. Even when they were sitting on the couch and she was playing the video game, she kept (probably subconsciously) leaning towards him. I don't even think Hidan noticed until Suzan nearly elbowed him in the ribs. It was pretty funny to see, but also concerning. After all, if those two got together, breaking up again would be that much more painful. But as I was sitting on Suzan's favorite dark brown armchair which she'd decided to abandon, I realized I had my own sorting out to do.

Unfortunately with Tobi in the room I couldn't think of anything but ways to kill him. He'd really, very nearly driven me to the edge. I could've gotten a lot worse but luckily Suzan had been there to restrain me. I sighed as I watched Deidara get his ass kicked for the nth time in a row. Suzan chuckled at his raging, and I smirked amused, watching him snap at her. Then Ella finally got downstairs, followed by Kakashi. Deidara whistled.

"What have you two been doing upstairs, all alone, yeah?" he taunted.

You could imagine how extra awkward this was considering… it was Itachi's body here. But Ella simply smiled, as she wasn't someone that shied away from that sort of topics at all.

"Jealous you're not getting any loving?"

Oh god. Priceless. Hadn't it been hilarious I would've looked disturbed, hearing _that _come out of Itachi's mouth.

That shut him up almost instantly, as Hidan laughed at him and the bomber proceeded to throw his controller at the Jashinist's head, then try to kill him with pillows. Suzan, unluckily being in between them, was angrily yelling at them to stop though they didn't listen much.

Sasori walked in, glanced at the fight taking place, then coolly walked over to the other armchair and sat down, pretending like everything was completely peaceful. How did he do that?

"Yo, Sasori my man! Give me a hand here, yeah!" Deidara yelled at him. The puppet master merely glanced then rolled his eyes.

"I didn't think so. I'm not getting involved in your childish arguments about that girl." There was a silence.

"Ooooh, are senpai and Hidan-san fighting over Suzan-chan? Tobi thought this was about the game…." the masked bastard muttered.

"It IS about the game, yeah!" Deidara shouted in his ear, then glared at his partner. "Great fucking help you are!" Sasori shrugged, obviously not giving two shits about the matter, and Deidara, having let his guard down, got a pillow straight in the face and fell back, right on top of Tobi.

"Oh for fuck's sake…." Suzan huffed frustrated, as she managed to get away from the scene, and stood next to my chair.

"So," I said entertained "you and Hidan?"

She glared.

"Fuck you."

* * *

><p><strong>That was it for the Valentine's Day chapter! Kinda short, but, you know... I only had a day to write it, so forgive me if it contains lots of typos and stuff. It's late and my eyes hurt xD<strong>

**Hmmm, personally I love the conversations here, especially Ella and Kakashi's, the most.**

**Couldn't do romance with Ella and Itachi… I mean, considering… it would be really… weird O_O**

**BIG THANKS TO _Triple T 123, Bookielovesanimeeee, xXScarlatto-OokamiXx, RandomAwesomer101, yyh-ygo-fma, Dust, Rakiku Inoe, Hanoonee, BeneaththeMarquee, Good boy-chan, Deidara's Dragon, Gin-Senpai, Narutofan3, Marskatr, Chocoholics Unite, redcoverpaint, Bree-Chan, Mahri, whatsername810, The Ultimate Baka, Woodshrew, xShadowAllstarx, ktizle13, SeaDevil, Logarythm, dettarsvenska_ and _nobody_! LOVE YOU GUYS!**

**Don't forget to drop a review! :D**


	17. Suzan's stupid mouth

**Okz, now that Valentine's Day chapter is over with, it's time to get serious!**

**Ehm… partially serious. I mean, you get my style, right?**

**Enjoy :D**

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

After dinner, I'd gone to sleep quietly. I'd only pulled off the shirt so I wouldn't get too hot in bed. I sighed deeply, trying to forget in whose body I was and closed my eyes. Didn't help much. Only after about an hour of twisting and turning did I finally get some sleep. I had nightmares. Horrible nightmares, and it was always the same one. It began with a woman. I vaguely recognized her, as she looked somewhat like Sasuke, or rather, he looked like her. She always ended up dead. I could only assume this was Mikoto, Itachi's mother, and the nightmare always ended with me staring down at her blood-stained face with the horror-struck expression as her corpse lay on the dark blue carpet.

Eventually, after having woken up several times, sweat covering my body, I decided to wash my face and then go downstairs to drink something and calm my nerves. I encountered Pain, who was sitting on Suzan's favorite armchair in the living room, seeming to be lost in his own thoughts as he was staring at the diamond little star, which was slightly smaller than the palm of his hand. He'd kept it the entire time. He looked up briefly as I walked down the stairs.

"Why are you awake?" Pain questioned me, as if I wasn't allowed to be. I blinked, walking across the room towards the kitchen.

"Couldn't sleep." I said, then entered the kitchen to grab a drink and went back to the living room, sitting down on the couch. He was staring and his Rinnegan was freaking me out.

"What does it feel like?" he then quietly asked me, probably talking about the body-switch. I looked down at my knees, frowning as I was trying to find the words to describe it.

"Lifeless." I eventually answered.

"Lifeless?" he repeated, clearly not understanding my answer. I glanced at him, and took a sip from my drink.

"I don't know how else to put it. It's… his body, it feels like it's... so tired." I didn't mention the nightmares, of course. Pain was staring at me intently, and I avoided all eye contact. Eventually he simply sighed, and put the diamond star in the pocket of his robe. "So did you figure anything out yet, about that thing, I mean?" I asked curiously. He slowly shook his head.

"I have no idea what kind of energy it is that it contains, but it is unlike anything I've ever seen before, and… frighteningly powerful. That much I've figured out." he explained, and I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

"How powerful, exactly?"

"I can't say with certainty. But considering it can fulfill _any_ wish you make…." I felt kind of stupid by now, and folded my arms, leaning back to the couch. _Well, duh, Ella, if it can fulfill any wish it's probably the most powerful thing ever._ There was a silence and I dared to ask yet another question.

"If you wanted make a wish, what would it be?" Pain seemed somewhat surprised by my question, then thought about it before replying.

"That is a question for which I have no easy answer for."

"So you don't know?" It almost seemed like he wanted to roll his eyes.

"No, simply that my answers are probably too complex for you to understand."

"Wait, did you say answers? As in, multiple ones?"

"That's generally what it means when you put a word in a plural form, Ella."

"I knew that." I huffed with a pout and he smiled ever so slightly, amused. "But try me, anyway. I mean, at least tell me what you're thinking?" I said, getting bored. I couldn't get sleep, and I didn't feel like reading anything either. Besides, I was wondering what kind of weird answer he'd come up with. I'd expected him to say simply "peace in the world". But apparently that wasn't what he was thinking. Pain was silent as he was thinking, when someone else came down as well. It was Itachi. He seemed slightly surprised seeing me, but silently sat down on the other armchair in the room.

"Ask him." Pain then said, glancing at Itachi, who looked at me.

"Ask me what?"

"If you could wish for one thing, what would it be?" I said, and he too was silently contemplating my question.

"There are many things I could wish for and would want to wish for." Itachi stated, which basically meant _'I'm not telling you'._ "What about you, then?"

"Uhm, I don't know. Something generic like, peace, maybe?"

"Wishing simply for 'peace' is too broad of a wish. One would have to specifically state peace for whom and for how long. In that case, a possible answer would be 'eternal peace in the world', however, that answer is also a very bad idea. Eternal peace is impossible, for it to be achieved would only be through either put the entire world in a trance-like state or brainwash them. In that case, it isn't _true _peace, and your wish would be wasted. The best answer would then be, 'the most peaceful state the world can achieve for an eternity'. This doesn't cross the boundaries and ensures… Ella, are you still following me?"

I blinked, shaking my head slowly. He sighed, and I felt a little embarrassed. "I'm sorry, you were talking rather fast and it's like three in the morning… so uhm… I kind of lost you somewhere between 'eternal peace' and 'brainwashing'." I muttered apologetically. Pain seemed to have been entertained, somewhat, as far as I could tell at least.

"I never knew you were this talkative, Itachi." he noted. The Uchiha glanced sideways, pondering, reluctant to respond. "Either way, it doesn't matter at the moment."

"Hey, guys?" I asked then, realizing something. They both looked up at me. "Do you think… do you think we could wish for more wishes?"

There was a long silence as they both stared at me. Pain quickly grabbed the diamond star out of his pocket.

"I wish I had ten more wishes." he said solemnly. Suddenly the star lit up bright red, and to my amazement, it projected words in the air, hovering in the middle of the room.

_**NO CHEATING ALLOWED!**_

"Well, it was worth a shot." I mumbled as Pain, somewhat frowning, put the star back in his pocket.

"It was to be expected." Itachi said, unsurprised. I suddenly started to get sleepy again, but I tried not to yawn or let them notice. I really didn't want to go back to sleep and get those horrible nightmares again. I looked at Itachi, wondering if he had to deal with them every night. I suppose I'd been looking at him with some compassionate look in my eyes, because he frowned, then sighed knowingly and looked away, his expression having darkened slightly. I put my head back against the couch and decided to turn the TV on to get some distraction. There was some horror movie on and I quickly zapped away when someone got cut in half with the chainsaw, starting to get nauseous and flinching visibly. Eventually I ended up watching some reruns.

Then my drowsiness got the better of me and I fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up the next morning, I found myself in my bed, up in my own room. Someone had carried me up here, and I figured that someone was Itachi.

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

"Suzie? Where are you going?"

"Off to the witch!" I answered Alex as I put on my jacket and shoes. I'd already eaten my breakfast and was ready to get it over with as soon as possible.

"Hey, wait for me, yeah! I was going to come too, remember?" Deidara said as he tried to break free from Hidan's grip on him. The two had gotten into a fight again, for the nth time. I would have to do something about it eventually but for now, as long as they didn't break anything important, I was fine leaving them be.

"No, you're staying here. I thought I'd already told you this, but apparently you have a bad memory." Pain then stated coolly, looking at Deidara, who frowned at him.

"What do you mean? You're gonna let her go by herself?" Pain shook his head.

"I'm going with her, to ensure we capture this woman. Sasori will follow from a distance, in case something goes wrong." Deidara couldn't protest that. I, on the other hand, felt rather uncomfortable. Granted, when the fearsome leader walked out the house he was wearing sunglasses but his piercings were just enough to attract some attention. I glanced at the others before I left the house as well and followed him uneasily. He was wearing casual clothes, which was so weird for me to see him in. Usually he'd just walk around in his cloak. I'm sure Sasori was following us inconspicuously by now, but I couldn't see him. Which was a good thing, I suppose.

I walked right next to him, and glanced at him every now and then before the silence was getting awkward and decided to start up a conversation.

"So, you and Konan?" I asked, and he glanced at me with a frown.

"Yes?"

"You used to be really close, right?"

"We still are."

"Oh, I see. Cool." Pain was staring at me now. "What?" I asked innocently.

"Were you implying something?" he asked sharply. I looked away, trying to act as if I had no clue what he was talking about.

"Implying? Well, what would I be implying, then? It was just a simple question."

"It sounded like…."

"Like what?" He glared at me and I sighed. "Alright, fine. I'd just been wondering if, you know, if you ever saw her like that? More than a friend, I mean." He was silent, and for a second there I thought he was going to genuinely answer my question.

"That's none of your business." Good enough. It was basically a yes, anyway. I giggled, and in my amusement I bumped straight into the person I'd been looking for. The senile old lady nearly fell down, if I hadn't grabbed her arm before she did. I glanced at Pain and he seemed to be on guard, which was good. I wasn't about to be turned into a small animal. I took a step back, trying to remember moves from self-defenses classes I'd taken a few years ago, then realized the only move I knew was to kick a guy in the balls or poke someone's eyes out. Well, that was pretty much useless.

"So, we meet again." The old lady said with a smile. I frowned, staring at her curiously, when suddenly the lady looked at Pain and out of nowhere, black… black tentacles, I suppose? They shot out of the ground and wrapped themselves around his body.

_Is it wrong that I'm associating this situation with tentacle rape? _I wondered as I stared at the scene in front of me. Then I shuddered. _Yes, it's wrong. Very wrong. Tentacle rape bad! _

It looked as if Pain was trying to retaliate with his Rinnegan, but to his and my shock, nothing happened. "I took away most of your chakra, so don't try anything funny. And as for your subordinate…." Another pair of tentacles shot out from the ground, shooting like bullets towards a group of trees across the by now empty street. They grabbed a hold of something between the bushes and started dragging it towards us, and that something was the puppet master who'd been following us. I saw Sasori cursing softly as he too was made powerless now. We were _so _screwed. What the hell was this woman, anyway?

"Well, crap." I eventually noticed a led pipe lying against the wall just a few feet away from me and wondered if I'd be fast enough to grab it and bash her face in with it, and no, I was most certainly not going to feel any kind of remorse for that woman. She'd made my life a complete fucking mess and damn right I was going to make her bleed if I could, old lady or no. People had been indirectly killed, for god's sake.

"I wouldn't try that if I were you." I glared back at her, scowling deeply as I was wondering what my next move would be. "Oh, yes, I know, you're probably wondering where all this drama came from, aren't you?"

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't read my mind." I snarled at her, but she ignored it.

"Well, see, an ancient and powerful being such as me can get boring every few decades. Yes, you want to know _what _I am, don't you? Hm, I suppose you could say I'm an incredibly powerful witch who's been around for a long, long time. So, anyway, I was wondering, what would happen if I just gave some random mortal a few wishes? Would they be selfish or not? Or, in your case, would they ruin everything? I didn't choose you specifically, oh dear me no, you're not that special. You just happened to be the girl I bumped into." She'd started blabbering, and I wasn't actually that interested. I just wanted her to either drop dead or reverse everything that had just happened. "Hmm, if so, why don't you just wish for it, then?" she stated dryly, having read my mind again.

My eyes widened for a moment. She had a point. I had one wish left and I could just reverse time, couldn't I? I glanced at Pain who'd been silent all this time. I knew he'd been planning in just finding a way back himself, and with Tobi's mastery of space/time ninjutsu it shouldn't take long, so he could keep that wish for himself. But right here and now, I could make a wish, and yet I didn't want to! Somehow, I'd become attached to the guys. It was stupid and illogical, after all, if I reversed time it would be as if I'd never encountered them. When did I become this damn caring, again?

"I see how it is," the old lady then said with an amused smile on her lips "well, that's fine with me. That's your decision."

"Just… answer me this, why did you curse Alex and Ella? They didn't do anything to you!" The old lady shrugged.

"As I said, I was bored. You mortals can be quite entertaining. Hmm, last time I was bored I ended up creating a tsunami. Wasn't very impressive, if you ask me. You humans drown too quickly. Not much of a spectacle." I stared at her in shock. A fucking tsunami? She was bored? She was bored, so she thought it was okay to… to just go off on a whim and _kill _people? Mess with me? Curse my friends like that? I felt so furious. How _dare _she play around with us humans like that. Not to mention, people had been killed! Hundreds, thousands, innocent people, and she didn't give a damn because supposedly she was some ancient old hag with magical powers so she was automatically allowed to or some bullshit like that. Of course, because I had to be so rash and temperamental….

"Now listen here you stupid cunt, I don't care who the fuck you think you are, but to put it bluntly, you're just a goddamn bitch who thinks she can do whatever! I didn't ask for these guys to come here in the first place, Ella did, and she wasn't even serious about it! And you just made a tsunami because you were bored? BORED? Are you fucking kidding me? Who the fuck do you think you are, God? And no, I don't care if you're going to put a fucking spell on me after this, you and your magical powers of abracadabra can go to hell and kiss the devil's ass!"

There was a long silence as the lady stared at me. I was expecting some sort of ultimate glare of doom. Maybe an outburst. But she smiled sweetly at me instead, which was a whole lot more terrifying.

"My, my, you really do have a mouth on you." she muttered quietly. She glanced at Pain. "Hm, you have more willpower than I though." He'd managed to break free of a few tentacles, and obviously the old lady did not appreciate this. "Time to get rid of you, then. I don't feel like dealing with someone who might become a bother later on. Take your subordinate with you, while you're at it."

She clapped her hands, and a black portal opened underneath the both of them. With surprised looks on both their faces, they fell down, and the ground closed up again. I was slack jawed, staring at the spot they'd fallen through. How… what? What the _fuck_?

"Well, I suppose you're happy now, then, aren't you? I got rid of some for you." I looked back at her, furiously.

"NOT PAIN!" I yelled. "At least he had a slight chance of beating you, you evil bitch!" I didn't feel as bad that Sasori got zapped away, considering he hadn't liked it here anyway, but Pain? Now who was going to keep the others in check? She raised her eyebrows, unimpressed by my anger.

"Oh? You want to take me out, do you? Why don't you wish for it?" I gritted my teeth.

"Fine. I wish you'd kill yourself."

"Didn't think so." I narrowed my eyes.

"I seriously want to personally bash your skull in right now."

"That hurts my feelings, Suzan."

"Screw your feelings. We'll take you down, somehow! Even if I reverse all of this now with my one wish, you'll just find someone else to make miserable and maybe worse things can happen, maybe you'll decide to kill some more people again for your own entertainment, but I'm not going to let you. Mark my words, I _will_ fucking kill you." At this point, I'd already decided I was fucked, so I might as well go out in style with my head held high and try to take her down in the process. She narrowed her beady, dark green eyes, and seemed to be annoyed for a second, before she started grinning widely.

"Is that a challenge, I'm hearing?" she said, almost excitedly.

"Damn right it's a fucking challenge!" I shouted irately. She laughed loudly, clearly amused by this entire display.

"Oh, a mortal, challenging _me_! Magnificent! I haven't been this amused in such a long time! Very well, then! But you can't hope to challenge me with the people you have now. How about we make things more interesting, and I'll give you two more powerful allies, in exchange for the two I just teleported away just now? Hm, of course it will be no one with that troublesome Rinnegan, that might form a problem for me in the future. If you mortals want to try and defeat me, go ahead! At the very least, it will be entertainment for me." I gaped at her, puzzled. Wait, what? New allies?

"No, NO! I did not ask for new allies, for fuck's sake!" I screamed, desperately but she vanished into the thin air, right before my eyes."GODDAMMIT! What did I ever do to deserve this shit?" I glared up at the sky. "I am SO going to kill you, you hear me, you stupid hag?" At least the upside was that I'd have a better chance at beating her with more allies, but really, it was going to be such a pain in the ass, depending on who she decided to send.

Me and my stupid mouth couldn't have just stayed quiet. I had to go an challenge a being that was probably a hell of a lot stronger than any of us were. Great, just fucking great. _Good job, Suzan. Good job._

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

I was playing chess against Kakuzu as I was trying to get distracted. The more I'd been in this body, the more anxious I'd started to become. It wasn't a very pleasant experience as the nightmares from last night kept haunting my thoughts. I felt so sick. I'd always detested anything that had to do with blood or murders, and I could positively say that the dreams from last night had left a scar.

"Checkmate." Kakuzu suddenly said. I blinked, staring at the board. I'd lost? In such an obvious manner as well. I couldn't believe I hadn't seen his queen! Kakashi had been looking closely the entire time, and he sighed.

"You don't look too well." he then noted as he stared at me, and I scowled, looking away.

"I'm fine." I mumbled. Eventually I got up from my chair, annoyed with my loss, and walked to the kitchen to eat a snack. I glanced once at Itachi, who was standing in front of a window while drinking some orange juice. The moment I walked in, and we looked each other in the eyes, something incredibly weird happened. I felt that floating feeling again as my vision blacked out, and when I opened my eyes again I was looking in Itachi's Sharingan.

"Finally!" I sighed relieved, having missed my body dearly. Itachi studied his hands for a moment, then he stared up at me, expectantly, as if he was waiting for me to say something. I wasn't about to. I'd rather not talk about it if it wasn't necessary, but apparently to him, it was.

"Ella."

"Hmm?"

"I'm glad this as all over with, but I've been wondering, were you having nightmares last night?" I promptly looked away, which he took as a yes. I tried to wave it off and wanted to leave immediately. I just felt like I'd invaded his privacy, and it felt wrong.

"It… it didn't bother me that much," I lied through my teeth, which was obvious to him "really, you can just forget about it, I won't tell anyone." I spoke as I walked towards the door, but he grabbed my wrist and stopped me. I turned around to look at him with a scowl. "What do you want me to tell you?" I eventually stated when he didn't say anything and just looked at me. "That it was horrible? Because it was. It was… it was the most hideous thing I've ever seen." He narrowed his eyes when hearing that, and looked away, but still had a firm grip on my wrist. He seemed… in doubt about something. Eventually he looked up at me again.

"I hadn't meant for you to see that. I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault." I responded softly, and kindly, with an understanding look in my eyes. I still couldn't imagine killing your own flesh and blood, but… but I could understand the sort of pain he must've felt. He stared in my eyes a while longer, before he abruptly let go of my wrist and turned his back on me.

"Ella, do me a favor and stay away from me." Itachi stated unexpectedly, no emotion in his voice.

"I… what?" I replied confused.

"I don't need your pity. Don't fool yourself into thinking you can understand what I've been through, or felt."

"That's… but I can! I _do_!" I protested. Maybe not entirely, but definitely for the most part.

"No, you do not." he glanced at me once with a harsh look in his eyes. "Now please leave me be. I want nothing to do with you anymore." I was speechless. Why would he suddenly say that? I thought we understood each other, and now he suddenly turns his back on me? Upset, I marched out of the kitchen, feeling angry, saddened and confused. Unbeknownst to me, someone had been eavesdropping our entire conversation.

* * *

><p><strong>Kakashi<strong>

"Now was that really necessary?" I stood in the kitchen, looking at Itachi who'd seemed to have gotten his body back. He glanced at me but didn't answer. I sighed, sitting down on a chair against the dining table. "Having a friend won't kill you, you know."

"But it will weaken me, and I don't want that to happen." I frowned at him by now.

"It can also strengthen you, but that depends on how you deal with it."

"Strengthen me?" he repeated, raising his eyebrows as he now turned to stare at me. "I think not. At least, not in my current state."

"I'll bet you fifty bucks it will." I said nonchalantly as I leaned back in my chair.

"Nonsense. Ella is weak, fragile. If I start caring about her, I'll want to protect her and I'll lose sight of my goal."

"Which is what? Dying by your brother's hand and try to make him a hero?" I scoffed, getting irritated by now. "You should realize by now that that plan is bound to fail. Have you seen Sasuke? He's basically turned into a revenge-obsessed psychopath. He won't just return to Konoha. He'll try and avenge you by destroying the village you vowed to protect. But, I digress." I stopped myself before I started rambling. "The point is, Ella is probably the only other person who has a slight idea of what you've been through. She doesn't need you to protect her. She's just glad she has someone that can understand her, and shouldn't you be glad as well?" There was a silence and I waited for him to respond. Eventually he shook his head.

"You might have no trouble embracing her friendship, but it's not that easy for me." he spoke, and I rolled my eyes. Fine, if he wanted to be stubborn and make himself miserable for no reason then that was his problem, but I didn't appreciate him upsetting Ella in the process. "We will be leaving soon, in any case. Building a friendship for such a short amount of time is pointless."

"You're such a downer, Itachi-san." He scowled at this, but didn't respond and started looking out the window again. "Well, fine then. I'll just go enjoy a nice conversation with Ella while you wallow in self-pity." I got up, and he shot a rather intense glare at me when I said that. "Of course, you'd be free to join me, but considering you don't want to spend time on a "pointless" friendship, Ella will have to do with me."

I left the kitchen, still feeling him glaring at me, but it had been his decision to take his distance from Ella, so I couldn't exactly feel sorry for him.

* * *

><p><strong>Alex<strong>

I'm pretty sure everyone was completely dumbstruck as we listened to Suzan explain the entire thing to the others. I noticed Ella was finally back in her own body, which was a relief because talking to her had been awkward when she'd been in Itachi's body. In any case, I couldn't believe that Suzan had been reckless enough to actually challenge someone as strong as that witch! She'd turned me into a fox with a flick of her wrist, what made Suzan think we could possibly beat her? The others were inclined to agree with me. Now we didn't have Pain on our side anymore, it was going to be really, _really _tough.

"Hey, she did say she'd give us two powerful allies!" Suzan protested at our complaints. We were all gathered into the living room by now.

"What if these allies are completely unreliable? Then what, yeah? Or even worse, what if they decide to waste our wish on something stupid?" Deidara said with a frown.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get there, but for now we'll just have to… figure out some sort of strategy."

"Do we even know what this woman is?"

"A witch."

"How the fuck do you defeat witches?"

"How should I know? Do I look like a witch-hunter to you?"

I heard a distinct and familiar cracking sound. "Guys," I spoke, trying to get their attention, but they kept arguing amongst themselves.

"You got us in this shit, get us out of it!"

"How do you propose I do that, asshole? Get on my knees and beg?"

"Well, maybe you should!"

"Hidan, shut up. You're not helping."

"Oh, and you are, Kakuzu? All you ever do is tell me to shut up, anyway!"

"That's because you should."

"Fuck you! Why don't you ever come up with a plan, then, huh?"

"Guys!" I snapped annoyed, pointing up to the ceiling where another portal had opened.

There was a complete silence, that lasted for about five seconds.

"Twenty bucks it's a Kage."

"You're on."

* * *

><p><strong>Aaaaaand, it's done! :D<strong>

**Well guys, you heard the witch, two powerful allies. Who should it be? So far I've heard people ask for Kisame, Konan, Gaara, even Madara (the real one! NO, HE'S **_**NOT**_** TOBI DAMMIT!), and each one of those are pretty powerful. Or you could ask for someone else entirely. Of course the two with the most votes will (unfortunately for them) get sucked into the story! And unfortunately for me, I have to count the votes -_-'**

**BIG THANKS TO **_**ktizle13, Rakiku Inoe, Good boy-chan, Dust, BeneaththeMarquee, Chocoholics Unite, The Streaking Leperchuan, Bree-Chan, Akuma-Wolf-Drake, Mahri, The Ultimate Baka, Hanoone, Bookielovesanimeeee, RandomAwesomer101, Triple T 123, dettarsvenska, Woodshrew, SeaDevil, xShadowAllstarx, yyh-ygo-fma, xXScarlatto-OokamiXx, Dokuji-Chan, Alphabet soup99, Marskatr, My Little Pony Zombie Lover, akatsuki-kitten1**_** and **_**1zara-uchiha1 **_**for reviewing! YOU ROCK!**

**Jesus, my list of people to thank grows every chapter xD**

**Don't forget to review again! ^_^**


	18. Twenty bucks

**IT WAS SO CLOSE! **_**SO **_**CLOSE!**

***Dramatic sigh* Such a shame, really. Oh well. Hey, HEY! Don't go to the review page to count the votes, dammit! That's cheating, and that was MY job! DON'T TAKE MAH JAWB!**

**Oh… I see I have over three hundred reviews. OMFG U GAIS! I HAZ OVER TREE HUNDRUHD REVUWZ! CAN U BELIEVEZ EET? I R SO HAPPY RITE NAO! LOL!**

"**Cloud, are you going to go completely insane every time you hit a hundred-mark on your reviews?"**

**Why yes, my beloved reader. Yes I am.**

"**Well, fuck."**

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

I give up on life.

"Pay up."

"Hell no! This is bullshit!"

"Would everyone please calm down?"

"Hey… hey, Suzan, can I borrow twenty bucks?"

I give up. I can't take this crap anymore. There's only so much one's sanity can take before it starts cracking and eventually breaks. Mine was seriously being pushed to its limit. One moron was trying not to get strangled, the other was begging me for money, the third moron was trying not to get buried in sand as he was screaming, Ella was clueless, Alex was petrified, the others were just staring at the Kazekage who'd just landed in our house, and I was standing in the midst of it, wondering when I'd finally start developing schizophrenia. It was only a matter of time before I was going to hear a little voice in my head telling me to skin Hidan alive with a knife or set Deidara's face on fire, maybe even bash Tobi's mask in with a hammer. And to be honest, those all sounded like rather appealing ideas to me at the moment, which was deeply concerning.

Luckily, I wasn't the only one who'd had enough of the chaos in the living room. "_Be quiet_!" Of course this worked. One did not argue with a ninety year old fellow with five hearts which could each transform into gigantic monsters, except maybe if you were suicidal or just retarded. Besides, someone was going to have to sort of fill in for Pain. Well, someone was _also _going to have to explain to Gaara what the hell had just happened, and that someone was _not _going to be me. Oh hell no. I refused. This shit was _not _going to be for me to clean up. I never asked for any of this crap to begin with.

But, fortunately for me, Kakashi decided to take Gaara aside and dragged him into the kitchen. The shocked Kazekage recognized him as an ally and let him do so. I felt someone pull at my sleeve, and frowned at Hidan, who'd lost his bet with Deidara.

"I'm not lending you any money! Ask Kakuzu." He had an expression on his face that was somewhere between a pout and a glare, and then reluctantly turned to Kakuzu, a goofy grin on his face.

"Yo, 'Kuzu, you'll help me out, right? I mean we're frie-"

"No."

"Aw, come on, Kakuzu_-chan_! Could you pull that stick out of your ass for just one fucking minute and help m-"

"Hidan, shut it. No means no. And if you call me _'Kuzu_ or _Kakuzu-chan_ one more time I'll kill you."

"It's just twenty bucks you cheap son of a fucking- GAH! K… Kakuzu… can't… breathe!"

"Suffer, brat."

"Ass… asshole!"

I rolled my eyes, being used to this display by now; the two fighting (though usually it was just Hidan getting strangled) or having an argument each other was as normal as it was for the sun to shine. Kakuzu hadn't been _this _violent in the manga, but I supposed being locked up in a house with Hidan was enough to make him severely agitated and more impatient than usual.

I sighed, sitting down on the couch and trying to get my head together. Ella was sitting next to me, looking rather stressed out. Alex had retreated to the kitchen, no doubt also have a chat with Gaara since there was the possibility he wouldn't believe Kakashi's word alone. Well, she wasn't the most charismatic or persuasive person around, but she was definitely more than intelligent enough to figure out a way to convince the poor guy of everything that had been going on.

From his looks, and the way he immediately attacked Deidara, I could tell he was plucked from the timeline after Deidara captured him. Maybe even way after that, but it didn't really matter at the moment. I just needed to figure out where to put him. I supposed he could stay in Pain's room, now he was gone. Deidara was lucky; he didn't have to share his room with anyone any longer now. I looked at him with slight envy, though I didn't mind that much. My room, which I shared with Alex, wasn't too bad. There was plenty of space for the both of us, and luckily Alex was a quiet sleeper. Unlike Ella. Yes, she snored. Not very loudly, but she still did, and I was a person who'd only sleep with completely silence, so Alex was a perfect roommate for me.

"Hey," Deidara suddenly said to me "wanna watch me make some art, yeah?" he suggested, obviously bored. With making art, he meant blowing something up. I smirked, and nodded. He smirked back happily, and started walking upstairs to the roof. He couldn't go to the backyard, as Gaara was in the kitchen and he obviously didn't feel like going through there.

"Be careful you two!" Ella called out to me.

"Yeah, yeah. You worry too much." I called back, and left her downstairs with most of the guys.

* * *

><p><strong>Alex<strong>

"It's true, honestly." I insisted politely, sitting across the Kazekage. "What could we possibly gain from lying to you?" Kakashi was leaning against the wall, his arms folded as he'd already explained everything, and left the rest up to me. Gaara seemed puzzled and irritated. But mostly puzzled, as would I've been. He was silent for a long while, staring at his hands which he'd placed on the table, and eventually looked up at me again.

"How do we return?" he eventually asked, coolly. A much calmer reaction than I'd initially expected from him.

"A member of the Akatsuki is already working on that." I replied, leaning my head on my left hand, my eyes momentarily shifting to the kanji on his forehead. If I remembered correctly, it was the kanji for "love". I thought it was actually a pretty cool mark to have. It seemed to suit him as well, in a way.

"You expect me to trust them?" he said monotonously, interrupting my pondering and I sighed.

"No, but what other choice do you have?" He looked away for a moment, glancing at Kakashi, and stayed silent this time. "My name is Alex, by the way." I added, before it got awkward.

"Alex?" he repeated slowly, letting the name roll off his tongue, to test what it sounded like. "That's an odd name."

"Well, you're in an odd world."

"True enough."

"Come on, I'll show you around." I then decided cheerfully, getting up from my seat. He seemed hesitant.

"They won't attack you." Kakashi reassured him. "It would only be a waste of their energy." Gaara eventually nodded, and followed me as I showed him around. While in the living room, Hidan did send him nasty glares, as Gaara's sand earlier had hit him as well, but the Kazekage ignored him. Though I did introduce him briefly to Ella before we went upstairs. I showed him the room he'd be staying in, which had used to be Pain's room. He seemed content with that, then showed him the ladder up to the roof.

"I think I'll stay in my room, for now." he decided when the tour was over. I nodded understandingly.

"If you need anything, just ask me or Ella. Oh, or Suzan, the girl with the brown hair."

I got downstairs as there were explosions coming from the roof (probably Deidara being a show-off) and sat down next to Hidan. I noticed Tobi was gone. I mean, Itachi and Sasuke weren't around either, but the fact that _Tobi _was absent struck a nerve. What was that bastard planning? I shook my head. Maybe I was getting paranoid. Instead I just listened to Hidan and Kakashi, who were actually talking to each other. Or more like, Hidan was yelling at him.

"I couldn't care any fucking less what the hell they're doing up there, old fart!"

"Of course you don't. Which is why you're getting so defensive."

"Eh? I ain't defensive, you just piss me off!"

"So you wouldn't be bothered if Deidara was putting the moves on her?"

"Sorry, but I'm out of fucks to give right now." Hidan snapped at him, still a little too defensively. He was an open book.

"Is that so? Even if he's putting his arm around her waist right now? Whispering sweet nothings into her ear? Leaning over and _kissing _her?" Hidan's scowl was replaced by wide eyes. He then growled something unintelligible before he got up and ran upstairs within a matter of seconds. Kakashi rolled his eyes, sighing at Hidan's own blindness towards his feelings.

"You noticed it too, huh?" I said nonchalantly, lying down on the couch with my hands underneath my head.

"Well, I did notice it on his part. He seems rather possessive of her."

"On his part?" I repeated, turning my head to look at him.

"Suzan is much harder to read. At the moment I have no clue as to what she's thinking." I could agree with that. Unless she got really embarrassed by something beforehand, her lies were flawless. She'd make an excellent poker player, too bad she wasn't interested though. She could've won a lot of money with that.

"Hmm," I started getting an idea. "Do you wanna try to find out?" I suggested. Kakashi stared at me, then chuckled.

"I'm an adult man trained to be a lethal ninja, and you want me to use my talents to pry into a young lady's love life?"

"Yes."

"Excellent idea."

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

I was taking a swim in the pool, as I hadn't done that in a long while now. It was relaxing, and I enjoyed being in the water, though I decided not to stay for too long. It was getting late and it would get cold soon. At the edge of the pool, on the opposite end, Sasuke was attempting to have a conversation with Itachi, though it ended up being awkward with every single pause. I wondered if I should maybe help them get a decent conversation going. Then I remembered what Itachi had told me earlier, and I scowled. I hadn't said a word to him and I wasn't planning to either.

I wasn't exactly ignoring him because I was angry, but, apparently, I was a nuisance to him so I decided to bother him as little as possible. I don't know what I'd done, but if he felt that way it was best for me to leave him be. It hurt and was upsetting to me, but there wasn't much I could do. I didn't want to force him to converse with me.

"What are you going to do when we return?" I heard Sasuke ask as I swam closer to them. I didn't look at them, though, and pretended I was too busy swimming. I probably shouldn't have eavesdropped, and I scolded myself for it, but I was too curious.

"For one, leave the organization. I'm fairly certain my cover is blown by now." Itachi responded.

"I see."

"What about you?"

"I'll go wherever you go." There was a sigh on Itachi's part, and I basically started swimming in circles, to seem like I was occupied.

"Sasuke, I want you to return to Konoha." A brief silence followed. I could feel the tension in the air and had the urge to dive underwater.

"You know I can't." I spared a glance at the younger Uchiha, and saw he was gritting his teeth, his fists clenched. Itachi wasn't looking at him, though. He was staring at the horizon.

"You can. You simply don't want to."

"So what, you want me to live there without you and pretend like nothing happened while you do whatever?" Sasuke was getting angry, understandably. "You can't expect me to do that!"

"You're right, I shouldn't have expected that. But I'd been hoping for it, which was admittedly naïve on my part." Another silence. I decided to get out, as the conversation was getting a little too personal for me. I could feel Itachi's gaze burning in my back, and I quickly grabbed my towel from the chair and retreated inside without a sound. Deciding to take a quick shower, I walked upstairs to the second floor, only to find Kakashi standing on the ladder, his ear against the hatch that separated him from the roof. Was he blatantly eavesdropping on someone? I coughed, and he waved his hand, telling me to be quiet.

I narrowed my eyes.

"KAKASHI! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" I yelled. Kakashi jumped down the ladder, as the hatch opened and revealed a rather pissed off Deidara, with Hidan peeking right over his shoulder.

"The hell, yeah? Some privacy, asshole!" the blonde shouted at Kakashi, aggravated, and looked like he could attack him at any minute. Obviously he'd been fighting with Hidan again. Those two really didn't get along for some reason. Suddenly Suzan pushed both of them aside and climbed down the ladder, annoyed.

"You two can figure it out, I'm done dealing with this childish bullshit!" she huffed irately, stomping off to her own room and slamming the door behind her. I looked at the two startled men on the roof, who then immediately started arguing again.

"Your fault she fucking left!"

"My fault? _You're_ the paranoid asshole who thinks I'm gonna seduce her or something-"

"I never said that, she-male!"

"-then you come barging up on the roof interrupting our damn conversation like you own her, yeah, and it's _my _fault she's mad?" Meanwhile Kakashi was frowning at me. I blinked, pretending to be innocent and smiled lightly.

"Now why'd you have to go and yell like that?" he questioned, folding his arms as he stared at me. I chuckled.

"I just got a little overexcited when I saw you, that's all." I said with a playful smirk. Kakashi's frown deepened when I said that. For some reason, I felt particularly flirtatious. I hadn't really flirted or seduced a man in a while now. With seducing, I meant harmless teasing, of course. I might love to flirt, but I didn't sleep around with just anyone. I just loved loving, if that makes any sense.

"Overexcited?" he repeated sardonically. I batted my eyelashes, drawing closer to him. He didn't seem to notice it much.

"Of course. Why, you're such a handsome man, after all." I said in a soft tone, enjoying his startled reaction. Ah, maybe I could be considered somewhat manipulative when it came to this, but there really wasn't anyone else around to mess around with like this. I was a woman, and I had needs. Deidara was too young for me, Kakuzu was too old for me, Hidan wouldn't even notice me coming onto him, and Itachi… well, there was Itachi. The thought of… of openly flirting with him made me nervous and fidgety. He'd probably just stare at me the entire time and the whole thing would be awkward. I pushed him away from my thoughts. In any case, it was all fun and games for now.

"Handsome?" It seems he really hadn't expected this from me. Most men wouldn't. They thought I was some sort of saint, after all, incapable of doing anything that was even slightly naughty.

"Don't look so surprised, I'm sure you must hear that all the time." I said amused. "I'm sure you're a real ladykiller."

"Well, uh, I don't really… ahem, don't really pay attention to those things." He regained his composure quickly, and seemed to have figured out what I was trying to do. "But, a beautiful lady such as yourself must get plenty of attention as well, no?" he stated, as if he were challenging me to a flirt-off. I narrowed my eyes. _Challenge accepted._

"Oh please, if even half of the men were as charming as you are I might actually spare them a glance." I responded sweetly, brushing a wet lock of my hair out of my face. I had a towel around my neck and was still only wearing a bikini. Hadn't really noticed it until he came dangerously close, but I restrained myself from taking a step back. _I won't lose!_

"Can you blame them? You're very lovely, after all. Beautiful eyes, smooth skin, soft hair; you truly make every girl pale in comparison." He really was a smooth talker. I inhaled sharply when he inched even closer, and I realized I was blushing. Okay, time to give up!

"R-right, well, I have to, uhm, ah, take a shower!" I blurted out and rushed off to the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind me. _Rats, he found my weak spot._ Lovely, my favorite word in the English language, was not a word men often used on me. Their usual pickup lines would include that I was beautiful or sweet. But _if _they used it, it worked like a charm, and he figured it out in only a matter of seconds. But I wasn't going to be beat like this! I'd show him I was ten times better at smooth talking than he was!

I sighed, and as I was wondering how to try and blow him away, I thought back to Itachi. I wondered if I should try and talk to him. I was still upset but I felt like I at least had the right to understand why. I mean, he'd cut me off rather rudely. It had came out of nowhere, actually, and it was annoying me to no end. As I was undressing and turning the shower on, I heard Suzan scream.

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

Just thirty minutes earlier, I'd been sitting right next to Deidara, watching him blow stuff up, so let's start from there, then, shall we? I watched in awe as the clay bird exploded, and the pieces flew around. He'd filled them with paint, so it was raining colors and it looked so beautiful. He made sure to set them off away from us, so we wouldn't get paint splattered all over us. In the beginning, I hadn't really understood how he could possibly call exploding things an art, but as I watched diverse colors raining everywhere, I understood. It was fleeting, but impressive enough to leave an impact and, most of all, memorable.

"Having fun?" Deidara asked me, and I tore my gaze away from another exploding clay bird. I stared at him, and he smiled contently at my awestruck reaction.

"Wow. Just _wow_! This is so amazing!" I exclaimed. "Sasori's puppets have nothing on this!" Deidara laughed loudly, and I got an idea. "Hey, can you blow up an ever bigger one?" He smirked at me.

"I like the way you think, yeah."

Five explosions later and we'd had our fill for the day. We were lying on our backs, relaxing and just chatting like friends often did, and I felt truly content with my life during those moments. The old witch had completely escaped my mind. I was having fun with a friend, and that was all that mattered at the moment.

"You blew it up? You blew his desk up?" I repeated, shocked at hearing how Deidara had blown up the desk of an annoying teacher of his when he'd been in the Ninja Academy of his village. He chuckled at my reaction.

"I swear, the asshole hated my guts or something, 'cause he kept giving me detention for silly reasons. So one day I decided to pay him back in tenfold."

"Dude."

"Hmm?"

"I need to take you to my English professor's desk so you can blow that one up as well."

"Haha, sure, why not? Though you'll have to pay me for it, yeah." he uttered amused, putting his hands beneath his head as he stared up at the by now dark and cloudy sky. I turned my head over to him.

"Well, money isn't an issue."

"That's not what I had in mind, actually." Deidara said, glancing at me. I sat upright, and he followed my example.

"Oh? Then what did you want?" He was smirking mischievously at me, and I waited for him to respond, when suddenly the hatch popped open and Hidan got up on the roof, seeming to be a little pissed.

"Hey!" he greeted us loudly, and suddenly decided to sit right in between us. What was his problem? Deidara glared at him, but he ignored it, and looked at me instead. "What were you guys doing up here?" he asked, no, rather _demanded _to know, as if I owed him an explanation. I raised my eyebrows.

"Talking. Like normal people." I responded calmly.

"Just talking?"

"Why do you care?" Deidara snapped at him. Hidan shot him an annoyed look.

"Wasn't talking to you, blondie."

"Why did you come up here?" I asked with a frown. These two, whenever they were together they started getting seriously unbearable. They argued over every little thing, which had surprised me. I'd expected them to get along, because they both were rather… manly men. Testosterone filled men. But apparently their hotheadedness clashed.

"'Cause I felt like it." Hidan muttered in response, avoiding eye-contact. The bastard was hiding something alright.

"Right, sure." Deidara scoffed. "Why don't you tell us what this really is about, yeah?" Hidan stood up, his anger flaring.

"Why don't you shut your fucking mouth for once?" he snarled, remarkably defensive, and both me and Deidara stood up as well.

"You're such a jealous bastard! I spend fifteen goddamn minutes with her and you get your panties all up in a bunch because of that?" the blonde yelled annoyed at him. "Get over it, yeah! She has more friends than just you!" Jealous? I thought about it, and I observed Hidan yelling even louder back at him. Yes, I suppose from an outsider's view he came off as jealous. But I hadn't noticed, or rather, I hadn't minded. It was actually kind of sweet, in its own way. He didn't want to share me with anyone else. I inwardly smiled at this, a warm, tingly feeling in my stomach.

I then blinked, realizing what I was slowly getting myself into. _Oh no, no! Just friends, Suzan! You're just friends!_ I mentally told myself, and shook my head, having tuned out Deidara and Hidan's arguing. I looked to the artist, and I immediately knew there was nothing but a platonic relationship between us. He just seemed to be like the cool brother I'd never had. I didn't exactly know what he viewed me as, but I guessed (or hoped) it was the same for him to avoid making this situation complicated. Then, my gaze slowly shifted to Hidan. I observed him the whole time. I noticed the way his jaw clenched when he got frustrated, his brows furrowed ever so slightly, his purple eyes narrowing slowly. Then his lips curling up in a smug smirk, the way he cocked his head to the side, but then his muscles tensing when he heard something he didn't like.

Then I realized, I was paying way too much attention to him than was normal. I'd tried contemplating about what I thought of him, but he'd distracted me. In the end I'd ended up staring at his handsome face and toned body. Okay, back up, did I just think _handsome_? Wait, why did that matter? He was… he was handsome, and obviously had a nice… body…. Damn it all, he was just downright hot. Not just his looks. He had such an intense personality, I couldn't help but feel somewhat attracted to it. I was starting to blush inadvertently, trying to push that thought out my mind.

"What are you getting shy about?" Hidan interrupted his arguing and both of them stared at me.

"N-nothing! Absolutely nothing!"

"Right, sure it's nothing. Anyway, just tell this guy to leave us alone already, yeah?" Deidara huffed, pointing to Hidan, who scowled.

"No, tell that bitch to stop crying and man up!" Hidan retorted.

"Man up? Says the possessive asshole."

"I ain't possessive, dipshit, I was just bored, but then your pansy ass started bitchin' and moanin' about how I interrupted some stupid conversation!"

They were both starting to piss me off now I actually listened to them arguing.

"Guys, stop it already!"

"Yeah, she-male, stop whining!"

"She wasn't just talking to me, yeah, shitface!"

"I'll show you a fucking shitface in the mirror when I'm fucking done with you-"

"KAKASHI! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

And from there you know how it went. I got pissed off and climbed down the ladder. They were acting like they were toddlers and I was some sort of toy they didn't want to share. Okay, wait, did I just objectify _myself_? Bad example. Anyway, you get the point. Now I'm sulking in my room, trying to figure the mess in my head out which wasn't going to be easy. I sighed, rubbing my forehead. I couldn't let myself develop feelings at this point. No matter how much I twisted and turned it, Hidan was going to leave eventually, and while I could deal with never talking to a friend again, a lover was a different story. But at this early stage, it was just a slight attraction. True, I'd lately started noticing things about him I otherwise couldn't have, but if I just tried to… to ignore him, it wouldn't get to the point of where I actually fell in love.

I was so stuck in my own thoughts I didn't even hear the portal ripping open in my ceiling. Only when someone fell down did I let out a scream, shocked and surprised and immediately got on my feet, backing up against the wall. The man standing on the floor looked around alertly, then spotted me and his eyes narrowed. I gasped, and within a second he had a kunai at my throat, glaring down at me.

"You, tell me where I am if you want to live, _right now_."

"Y-you're… oh fuck." I whispered, my eyes wide, my heart racing. He was unmistakable. That man, Madara Uchiha, was standing in my room, threatening to slit my throat at this very moment.

_Oh FUCK._

* * *

><p><strong>*Sigh*<strong>

**Yes, this was a very romantic chapter. I felt like after all the drama we needed some lovey-dovey romance stuff... I hope you enjoyed :D**

**BIG THANKS TO **_**Anime Hottie Lovah, Good boy-chan, Misa1120, The Ultimate Baka, BeneaththeMarquee, XxScarlatto-OokamiXx, Marskatr, yyh-ygo-fma, Nobody, Triple T 123, Lost Location, ktizle13, Dust Bunnies Anonymous, Gin-Senpai, Veryleatia, GrimmyRayne, Loki7744, RandomAwesomer101, Woodshrew, Hanoonee, dettarsvenska, NAILxPOLISH, Crimson Trickster, Twisted Unicorns, Logarythm, Bookielovesanimeeee, Deidara's Dragon, SeaDevil, whatsername810, Suigetzu, 1zara-uchiha1, mks 12 98, Forever alone, ShareBearTheDeathBear, Happy Crying, Rakiku Inoe, SillylittleOtaku, xShadowAllstarx, Zombie overlord, meldaphoenix070, Anna, Mahri **_**and _TheVGMAAddict_! I'm tired… so… thanks… *yawn***

**Don't forget to… you know… review…. Zzzzzz….zzzzz….**


	19. Google it

**Okay, so somehow... I managed to write this within a day. Don't ask me why. Maybe I need to go out more often ._.**

**AND HOLY SHIT NEARLY FOUR HUNDRED REVIEWS ALREADY? **

**IMPORTANT:**** if you're not COMPLETELY up to date with the manga, (up to chapter 575) either go read everything (or **_**at least**_** chapter 575) or don't read this chapter. Because… yeah. ****Spoilers.**

**Anyway, um, here's the next chapter. Which will be full of… stuff… er… right. **

**Enjoy! :D**

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

"W-well… I… I… y-you're… u-uhm…." I was choking on my own words, trying to form a coherent sentence. The cold metal pressing at my throat didn't do much for my nerves, nor did the spinning Sharingan eyes staring into mine with impatience. God, this was probably the least person I'd expected to fall through, if anyone was going to. Why him? I cursed the old hag in my mind, and could almost hear her laugh at me, but tried to calm myself. "It's… it's uh, very complicated." The most legendary Uchiha raised his eyebrows, then scowled. I noticed the long hair, though it was shorter than I remembered it to be. No prominent creases under his eyes, and though he was wearing the red armor like I remembered from the manga, he seemed younger, somewhere in his mid-twenties. Dammit, she couldn't have at least given us Madara in his prime? Of course not; she didn't want to get her ass kicked after all. Bitch.

"I asked for my location. What could possibly be complicated about that, woman?" I held my breath, seeing his patience was running thin. _Come on, Suze, stay cool, he seems reasonable... somewhat. At least he doesn't have Hashirama's face on his chest. _

"It's a long story, so if you could just… you know, let me breathe?" I requested, my voice shakier than I'd wanted it to be. My persuasive skills were seriously failing me right now, just when I need them most. Madara narrowed his eyes, obviously agitated.

"Do you take me for a fool? Tch, no matter. I'll just figure it out by myself." He removed the weapon from my throat for a splitsecond, and then I saw it coming towards me, almost in slow-motion. He was aiming to kill, having decided I was an enemy. You know how people say their lives flash in front of their eyes when they are dying?

_OH FUCK I'M GONNA DIE SHIT SHIT SHIT MOTHERFUCKER OH HOLY SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK_- And so on, and so forth. That's really all that went on in my mind. No reflecting back on my life, no reminiscing about my regrets, thinking about my loved ones, no sir! All there was, was a wide range of colorful swear words as I was sure I was finished. He'd either stab me in the chest or slit my throat, and I'd die slowly and painfully.

Then, there was the sound of metal clashing against metal, and someone grabbed my arm and jerked me away. I lost my balance and fell into Alex who caught me. Kakashi was standing between us and Madara, and had obviously saved me. Ella, Hidan and Deidara were standing in the room as well. I felt Alex freeze and Ella gasp as she gazed at Madara, who seemed simply annoyed with the whole situation. I saw Kakashi's eyes widen in realization.

"You… but you're… this is impossible…."

"Nope, it's perfectly possible." I huffed in response, but then flinched when the Uchiha shot a glare at me. _Intimidating bastard._ I carefully got up on my feet, not having to rely on Alex anymore. "H-hey, listen, we're not your enemies here! It's a long story but if you just let us explain-"

"Explain?" he repeated derisively. "Oh yes, why do explain to me how one moment I'm talking to my clansmen and the next I'm being sucked into this ridiculous hole in the ground. Explain before I decide to kill you." While I knew better than to talk back, Hidan had no clue who the guy was.

"Who the fuck do you think you are, you asshole?"

"Hidan!" I hissed, as he was only making the situation worse. Luckily for him, Madara just ignored him, though that pissed Hidan off even more. My first impression of the legendary Uchiha? Bossy and impatient with a holier-than-thou attitude. The type of person who thought they should be put on a pedestal and worshipped. The type of person who hated losing and was indifferent to most people around him. Certainly not the type of person I'd like to hang out with. Oh, sure, Tobi had claimed in the manga that Madara had loved his clan, and I'm sure he had, but I highly doubted he cared about the people _in _his clan, save for maybe his direct family. He seemed more like he valued the pride and honor of his clan more than the actual people in it.

As I analyzed his character in my head, I kept staring at him, which was a bad habit, according to my psych teacher. He'd told me many times staring at a patient while analyzing them would make them uncomfortable, and from the scowl and intense glare Madara sent my way I could tell he didn't appreciate it either. Ella nudged me in the ribs when she noticed I was doing the staring-thing and I blinked, looking away quickly. Then the door to my bedroom opened once again, and things got really complicated.

Itachi and Sasuke walked in, both of their Sharingan eyes activated to spot any threats. They froze instantly when they saw their ancestor. Sasuke seemed particularly shocked, nailed to the ground, almost. Itachi's Sharingan eyes widened for a second, then I saw his jaw clench as he furrowed his brows, but he stayed calm. Well, this was awkward. Madara had a somewhat surprised reaction at seeing them, but then quickly turned suspicious.

"You two," he snapped "you possess the Sharingan, but I do not recognize you. State your names." From his demanding and bossy tone I could tell he was used ordering people around. I was probably supposed to be impressed or something, but instead I was just irritated by it.

"With all due respect, I'd doubt you'd recognize our names, or our even parents' names." Itachi spoke a lot calmer than I would've been in his position. Good thing I wasn't. Sasuke stayed silent, still seeming rather taken aback though he was processing it by now. "Allow me to explain."

About an hour later we were all downstairs in the living room. Everyone, except Tobi, was present. Figures. I'd have to track that bastard down sooner or later, as I couldn't have him just disappear on us like that. Despite him being a complete asshole, he'd be useful in the fight against that old bitch. In any case, back to the matter at hand; Madara was sitting on _my _favorite armchair (and I ignored the urge to yell at him) contemplating all the info we'd just dumped on him. Or actually, Itachi had dumped on him. Alex and Ella were sitting as far away from him as possible on two chairs, I was sitting between Deidara and Hidan on the couch, Itachi was on the other (newer and less comfy) armchair opposite to Madara and the rest were standing around.

We'd told him basically everything from the very beginning. Slowly, of course, and he'd constantly asked questions. He'd been confused and frustrated, but it seemed after an hour of explaining, he seemed to understand. Of course we avoided telling him about the Akatsuki, but we couldn't deny the fact that Sasuke and Itachi were his descendants.

"You expect me to take your word on this?" Madara eventually said after a tense silence. Of course this must've come as a huge shock to him, though his face didn't betray it.

"Why would we possibly make up such an elaborate lie?" Kakashi replied. "Besides, just look around you. Does this place _look _like Konohagakure to you?" Madara glanced out the window, seeing cars rush by out on the streets, then looked around in the room, glancing at the electronics present that must seem very foreign to him.

"Not really, no." he leaned back in _my _chair and I wondered if he'd kill me if I threw a book at his head, then decided he'd probably throw it back and unintentionally kill me with it. "So who is this old woman?" he eventually asked. Everyone looked at me, waiting for an answer.

"She described herself as an ancient and incredibly powerful being, and a witch. However, considering she can make _any _wish you make come true, I'd say she's on the level of a Goddess instead of just a witch. Witches were never described as that powerful throughout history. That's all we know about her." I explained, and wondered if I could try and research stuff about her on the internet.

"But why is she doing all of this?"

"She said she's… well, she was bored."

"She was _bored_, so she saw it fit to pluck me out of my village just for her own entertainment?" he said with an incredulous look on his face.

"Er, yes. So, do you want to help us defeat her?"

"Gladly." he responded. "But with so little information it's impossible to come up with an appropriate strategy." I glanced at Alex and we were both thinking the same thing. She stood up and walked to the kitchen, then came back with her laptop which she'd left there on the table earlier.

"What's that?" Sasuke asked with a frown, never having seen a laptop before. Alex opened it and switched it on.

"It's a device which stores all information known to man, to put it simply. Think of it as a giant library stuffed in a small electronic device." she explained absentmindedly, probably browsing the web by now. Deidara, Gaara and Kakashi, who were sitting closest to her, curiously peeked over to the screen to watch what she was doing. "Keywords?" Alex asked me.

"Witchcraft and Goddess."

"Alright. Found something."

Ah, Google. You never disappoint. The wonders of technology…..

"That was fast." Madara said surprised. "Well, what does it say?" Alex looked up at him briefly.

"Apparently, there is a Greek Goddess with the name of Hecate. She is variously associated with crossroads, gates and other entrances, passages, lunar lore, the night sky, the sea, the restless dead, dogs, snakes, magic and witchcraft. The website also says she used to be described as a beautiful lunar goddess, and had the power of giving humanity anything she wished, or withholding it if she pleased.

"She could rule the earth, heaven and sea, but usually was seen as a protector of shepherds and sailors. Her reputation was tarnished by humans over the centuries, and she was starting to be described as _an old hag_ or _an ugly witch stirring a cauldron_, but then was eventually forgotten. That's all I could find."

"Well, that explains EVERYTHING!" I exclaimed, having a Eureka-moment when Alex was done, focusing all attention on me. "Obviously she's a bitter old woman because she was depicted as an ugly old witch and then forgotten by us mortals. She created that tsunami and decided to screw with me to get some sort of revenge for all of that shit, and I'm pretty sure she did a lot of other stuff as well. Not to mention she is the Goddess of crossroads and entrances, so it's no wonder she could rip open a portal whenever she wanted to, and because she is associated with witchcraft and magic, she calls herself a witch. It makes perfect sense!"

"Psh, I bet Jashin-sama could kill her."

"Not now, Hidan."

"Wait, wait, wait…." Ella interrupted me. "Are you telling me Greek mythology is _real_?" I was silent, then my jaw dropped. Oh my god. There went my proud status as an atheist, flying right out the window. Ella herself was dumbstruck, as she'd been a Christian all her life. "So… so Zeus and Hades and all those other Gods...?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about right now, but I'm pretty sure there are more important matters at hand, yeah." Deidara interrupted our religious-identity-crisis. Alex was the only one out of the three of us who didn't give a damn.

"It doesn't matter what this woman is, we just need to find a way to kill her." Sasuke said, folding his arms with a scowl.

"How do you want to kill a Goddess?" Kakuzu asked dryly, and Sasuke glared at him, having no answer to that question.

"To be fair," Alex started "Greek Gods and Goddesses have been killed before. It is possible for them to die, though… only by the hand of another God or Goddess."

"So what you're saying is that we're screwed?"

"Unless you convince her to teleport the Sage of the Six Paths here, yes, we are screwed. But, they can be harmed to a point. I remember reading a myth of the Goddess Aphrodite, who pricked herself on the thorns of a rosebush and her blood turned the roses red."

"We can injure them, but we can't actually kill them? So their immortality is similar to Hidan's." Itachi stated.

"In that case, severing her head should do the trick."

"It's not much to go on, though."

"But it's the best shot we have. Why not take it?"

"And risk getting our asses kicked?"

"It's that or be stuck here forever, yeah."

I sighed, listening to the men argue about strategy and what to do next as I leaned back on the couch and tried to get rid of my headache. I then decided to go look for Tobi, as he'd been absent the entire day. It was probably like four in the morning by now but I was just too annoyed to go to sleep. I got up, but then realized someone would have to show Madara around. Seeing as how I'd taken it upon myself to look for the masked bastard and Alex had already shown Gaara around, I looked at Ella with puppy eyes, who looked back with a slight frown gracing her face.

"Ella," I cooed sweetest voice I could manage "you're such a sweet person, right?"

"If… if you say so." she said, getting a little suspicious by now.

"See, I'm so tired today, and I really need to relax," I mumbled, which was true, though I did try to seem more anxious than I actually felt "but _someone _has to point Madara to his room, and… well, I figured maybe you'd want to?" Ella glanced reluctantly at Madara, who'd heard that and was looking at her, and she looked back at me.

"If you're really not feeling well, then sure, I guess." she said, though she didn't seem to really want to, and I sighed relieved.

"Thanks, I really owe you one." I had no intention on spending alone time with that prick, and walked to the kitchen, wondering if Tobi had been hanging out there.

* * *

><p><strong>Alex<strong>

I'd put my laptop away and heard Suzan convince Ella to go show Madara around in her place, and felt sorry for her. I frowned as Suzan walked into the kitchen, abandoning the living room, and glanced at Ella, who seemed more than reluctant to be alone with the guy. Honestly, I would be to. He had one intimidating aura. I looked at Kakashi, wondering if he'd heard, but he'd been so occupied in discussing strategy he hadn't noticed at all. Well, if no one was going to go upstairs with them, I would have to. I'd rather not see Ella alone with a threatening guy like Madara. But apparently I hadn't been the only one thinking the same thing, as when Ella and Madara got up, so did Itachi. She shot him a questioning look.

"I'm going to my room." he said simply. I noticed Sasuke frowning at his older brother, and couldn't help but smirk. At least Ella seemed very relieved. I watched the three of them go upstairs.

"THREESOME TIME!"

"HIDAN! Seriously, man!"

The three of them froze on the stairs and turned around to look at the crazy Jashinist. Ella looked mortified, Madara had a perfectly blank look on his face and Itachi was slightly scowling, disapprovingly. But Hidan was laughing his ass off, and even Deidara seemed amused, chuckling silently. Sasuke was glaring daggers at him, and then Hidan got the remote flung to his head which hit him square in the face. But Sasuke hadn't thrown it, Kakashi had. He seemed so nonchalant I'd almost believe he was innocent, had I not _seen _him throw said object.

"Oops, my hand slipped." he said very unapologetically. While Hidan started raging and Kakuzu scolded him, telling him to shut up for the nth time, I watched Ella, with her by now reddened face, dart up the stairs so fast I was a little baffled at her speed. The two men behind her seemed somewhat startled by her sudden running, but followed her coolly nevertheless, with an indifferent air only an Uchiha possessed.

I leaned back, bored, as I watched Sasuke throw what was probably an inner hissy fit and rolled my eyes. Deidara then tapped me on the shoulder and I looked at him questioningly.

"Aren't you getting bored, yeah?" he asked, and I nodded, yawning lightly. "Wanna go out or something? Anywhere is fine. I'm getting sick of this house, yeah." I had to agree, but I couldn't just take them out somewhere, considering he and Hidan had been seen at a crime scene. It had been over a month now, but still, we had to be alert.

"We can't go to public places, though." I said, and he sighed annoyed.

"I just wanna meet some new people while I'm still here, you know?"

"Well, aren't you a social butterfly."

"Hey, don't mock me, yeah!"

"For once I agree with blondie. This house is fucking boring now." Hidan chimed in, complaining loudly. I thought about it for a while, then pulled a phone out of my pocket and dialed a number of a good acquaintance of mine. "What are you doing?" Hidan asked curiously.

"I know a guy who knows some nice clubs to go to and can fix us free entry. You know, dance clubs? I mean, if you guys are into those sort of things." Everyone in the living room had now turned to me.

"Dance clubs?" Gaara repeated slowly.

"Yeah, have you never been to… oh. Right. Of course not. Well, it's a lot of fun! I go whenever I can."

"Everything is better than being locked up in here, yeah!" Deidara immediately exclaimed. Kakashi, Sasuke and Kakuzu seemed entirely indifferent to it, and Gaara obviously didn't seem convinced. In any case, I dialed a number on my phone and put it on loudspeaker. It had become a habit. When Pain had been around he'd always demanded phone calls in his presence be put on loudspeaker.

"_Yo? Hey, Dria, that you?" _

"'Sup Wes?"

"_Cool, cool. Whatcha callin' lil' old me for, girl?" _

"Was thinking about hitting a club somewhere this week. Got any sweet spots to hang out?" Wesley, my dark-skinned, energetic and loudmouthed friend laughed. I knew him from school, though we weren't exactly close friends, we talked every now and then.

"_Depends on where you wanna go."_

"Lancaster, dude."

"_Oh, you hanging out with Cheeky Lips?" _Both Deidara and Hidan stared at me in confusion.

"You mean Suze? Yeah." The blonde bomber chuckled at the nickname and Hidan smirked widely. They were _so _going to use that against her. Wes had met Suzan once, and had started hitting on her. Suzan being Suzan, she'd rejected him rather offhandedly but Wes being Wes, he'd kept persisting the entire night and eventually she'd lost her cool and started cussing at him. From then on she'd been dubbed Cheeky Lips. I chuckled at the memory.

"_She still single?"_

"Wes, you know you're not her type, plus she's three years older than you."

"_Man, I know that, way to rain on my parade. Anyway, Lancaster, right? Damn, Dria, you lucky. I just heard of a new club opening there. What was the name again? Hecate? Yeah, that was it. Anyway, I got a buddy of mine working there as the manager and I could get you and any friends you bring a free pass."_

"That… that would be great, Wes. Thanks."

"_No problem. I'll text you when I fixed it. You owe me one, though. Later."_ He hung up, and there was a long silence. A dance club with the name of the Goddess we'd decided to take out?

"That _can't _be a coincidence." Kakashi decided. "I'm going. There's a chance we'll see the witch again and we might manage to find her weak spot."

"It could also be a trap." Kakuzu noted skeptically, but Hidan groaned loudly.

"Don't be such a killjoy and just go with us, old fart." he said with a scowl. I spoke before another fight erupted between them.

"So all of you guys are coming?" I asked loudly. It seemed everyone agreed to go, though Gaara seemed a little reluctant. "Don't worry, you don't _have _to dance if you don't want to. You can also just drink something at the bar." He nodded slowly, though still not entirely happy. "Well, I'll go tell Suzan. Someone go tell Ella and those other two."

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

Truthfully, no one I'd ever met had been as intimidating as the man who was following me by now. I gulped, wondering how Suzan and Alex had managed to kept their cool somewhat while talking to him. At least Itachi was there as well, so I didn't feel entirely uncomfortable as I walked up the stairs to the second floor. Gaara would have to share a room with Kakashi, so Madara would get Pain's room for himself. I didn't say a thing as I walked up, as I had nothing to say to him. I had no intention on striking up a conversation, I just wanted to show him his room and get the heck out of there. I first showed him the bathroom though, and then pointed to his room.

"S-so, that's your room. Ehm, I'll be going… uhm… d-downstairs now." Stupid voice! I hated my stuttering, especially now he was eyeing me with curiosity. Just as I wanted to turn around and leave, he stopped me.

"Tell me your name." he ordered.

"It's… it's Ella." I muttered, avoiding eye-contact. Itachi was staring at his ancestor, and I could see a hint of annoyance in his eyes.

"Ella? Interesting name. What does it stand for?" I was taken aback by the question, and started to get nervous again.

"W-well… my… my mother told me… it's uhm… i-it means _'torch' _in another language, or uh… _'bright light'_."

"That's a nice meaning. So how much do you know about me?"

"U-uh…." I glanced helplessly at Itachi, and when I looked back at Madara, I saw an amused smile on his face. Was he purposely messing with me? It seemed he knew I was seriously frightened by him. "N-not… not much. I mean uhm… n-nothing of importance." Okay, I did, but it wasn't like I was going to tell him. Unfortunately he could tell I was lying.

"I think I'll decide what's important and what's not. So tell me, what do you know?" I opened and closed my mouth, not sure how to answer him, and stared at the ground.

"Ah… I really don't think it would be wise to tell you." I answered him softly, managed to have stopped my stuttering. I was brave enough to look at his face and saw he'd raised his eyebrows.

"Why not?"

"B-because… well, I can't tell you that!"

"Madara-sama," Itachi started, but the man raised his hand to gesture him to stay quiet.

"If you won't tell me willingly, I could also force it out of you. But that's up to you to decide." I went completely pale as he stared at me with a completely serious look on his face, threatening almost._ Forcing_ it out of me? That didn't sound very pleasant. At all. I gulped, and apparently Itachi had had enough.

"Madara-sama, if you're done scaring her, I'd like to borrow her for a moment." he stated coolly, and that's when his ancestor's face broke out into that amused smirk again. So he _had _been messing with me! I gazed at him indignantly (which only made him more amused), and felt the urge to give him an earful, but instead followed Itachi as he calmly walked down the stairs to the first floor, where his room was. Madara really did have a twisted sense of humor. Apparently he thought scaring me to death was funny. No wonder he probably got along with Tobi, they shared the same sense of humor after all. But in any case, this was a perfect opportunity to talk to Itachi.

"Itachi, I'd… I'd like to talk to you for a moment." I spoke hesitantly. He glanced over his shoulder once.

"I have nothing to say to you." he said indifferently. This really ticked me off.

"You _owe _me an explanation." I responded sharply. "I've been thinking about it, and if you don't want to… to be friends then I'll accept that, but not if you don't give me a reason!" He now fully turned around, facing me with a slight frown, but then averted his gaze to the wall on his left.

"You're not worth my time."

Ouch. That hurt.

My eyes widened as I processed that. No way. That was just….

"That's just such a blatant lie!" I said, my voice getting louder as my anger flared instantly. If there was one thing I couldn't stand, it was lies like these. "You're straight up lying to my face, and that's… I can't _tell _you how…. You know what, you're such a damned jerk!" I yelled, and there was astonishment written all over his face. That was probably one of the worst insults I'd dished out in a long time. "You don't think I'm smart enough to know when you're not telling the truth? You think I'm too stupid to handle it? Or maybe I'm too emotional? Is that it?"

"Ella-"

"Don't _'Ella'_ me!" I interrupted him brusquely. "You're just running away from this, just like how you ran away from… from actually dealing with Sasuke! You just decided to mess with his head and make him hate you, and instead of telling him the truth you made him kill you without explaining anything, and look what's become of him! You're… you're a _coward_!"

I regretted it all instantly, but I was too angry at the time to realize it. Never had I seen such a shocked expression on Itachi's face. His eyes were wide and his mouth slightly open, wanting to say something, but I trudged past him and down the stairs, too upset to even care about his expression. I'm pretty sure I was the last person he'd expected such an intense reaction from, but I was actually a rather emotional person. I didn't even notice that I'd walked right past Kakashi, who eyed me worriedly, but didn't say anything as I walked to the living room.

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

"Tobi?" I frowned when seeing him when entering the kitchen. He was sitting on the table, his legs swinging back and forth as if he were a kid. "Where have you been?"

"Nowhere, Suzan-chan!" he replied cheerfully. I folded my arms, leaning to the wall right next to the door.

"Is it because of our guests?" He stopped swinging his legs and I could see his Sharingan staring at me from the one hole in his mask. I hated the guy too much to be intimidated.

"What could possibly have made you think that?" he said sarcastically, in his normal voice, as he hopped off the table. I narrowed my eyes, eyeing him cautiously as he turned his back on me and walked over to the fridge, probably to grab a snack or something.

"You can't hide forever."

"Oho? I didn't know you were powerful enough to tell me what I can and can't do." he said with fake surprise in his voice, looking around in the fridge. I glowered at him.

"If you're concerned about Gaara spilling your secret, I could convince him to keep his mouth shut." Tobi stopped rummaging through my fridge and turned around to face me.

"Why would you do that?" he inquired curiously, and I rolled my eyes.

"Because what you've resorted to now is silly and is ruining your reputation." I responded soberly, walking over to the table and taking a seat. He shuffled over to the counter and leaned against it before replying, mockingly.

"Hmm? Suzan-chan is concerned about little old Tobi's reputation? How strange."

"Don't get any weird ideas. I just think what you're doing now is pathetic and out of the kindness of my heart I'm offering you my help."

"…Heh. Fine then, brat. Go tell the Kazekage boy not to run his mouth, or I'll be forced to kill him. Which would be a waste, he'd make a good ally after all." I tried not to snap at him for his bossy (though still nonchalant) tone, as I nodded and stood up, when I felt a question arise in the back of my mind. Before I reached the kitchen door I stopped and looked over my shoulder to the masked man.

"What about Madara?" I asked curiously. I could almost _hear _him raise his eyebrows when he replied.

"What about him?"

"Do you two know each other?"

"Isn't that obvious?" I glared at his derisive tone.

"Yeah, but what's the deal with you two?" He laughed humorlessly.

"You don't honestly believe I'll tell some brat about my plan, do you?"

"Fine, be like that!" I just reached for the doorknob when someone pulled the door open from the other side. Alex stared at me for a while, then glanced at Tobi. "Hi." I said dryly, and she rolled her eyes, getting in the kitchen and closing the door behind her.

"We're going out." she announced. I frowned at the sudden declaration, but Tobi asked the question before I could.

"Who is 'we' and where are 'we' going, exactly?"

"With 'we' I mean everyone. We're going to a dance club." Both me and Tobi silently stared at her.

"Why?" we both asked at the same time. He chuckled amused and I shot him an annoyed glare, slightly embarrassed. Alex smirked.

"The name of the dance club is _Hecate_."

That pretty much sealed the deal immediately.

* * *

><p><strong>Alex<strong>

After everyone had been informed, they all scattered. Some went to sleep, like me, or they just decided to hang out. When I woke up the next morning in my bed I checked my phone and saw Wes had already texted me back. It seemed he'd arranged everything for me and I grinned contently. I really owed the guy one. I got up, still a little sleepy, and looked at the time on my alarm clock; it was four in the afternoon. Damn. I yawned and stretched, then got up to walk to the bathroom, only to discover it was occupied. I knocked politely on the door. No response. I knocked for a second time, but still no response.

Suddenly the door opened rather abruptly and I nearly tripped over my own feet when I saw Deidara glaring at me, obviously not a morning person. I asked if he was done already, and he snapped at me that he was still busy, then slammed the door in my face. Okay, what had gotten into him all of a sudden? I decided to take the other bathroom upstairs, only to discover this one was occupied as well. I hesitantly knocked on the door. Madara opened it.

"What is it?" he asked with a slight frown, his hair still uncombed.

"Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Sorry for disturbing you, bye!" I got out of there as soon as possible, leaving him half-startled, half-irritated. Fact was, he was one intimidating son of a bitch and I really didn't feel like dealing with him the morning. When I got to the first floor again, however, I noticed the bathroom was open, and sighed in relief, opening the door and getting in, only to find it actually had been occupied, but the person occupying it had forgotten to lock the door. Gaara stared at me, his hair way messier than usual and he was holding a toothbrush in one hand. Thank god we'd bought extra toothbrushes, considering we'd kinda expected more people to fall down here.

"Sorry, didn't know you were here." I apologized quietly, but he shook his head.

"I was just finished." he told me blankly, and got out, walking right past me.

"Hey, you wanna go shopping for clothes?" I then asked, remembering that neither he nor Sasuke had clothes in their size. The others actually didn't have suitable party clothes either. We'd have to go shopping for all of them. Luckily we still had enough money, and for now, paying the bills was no problem. If we threatened to run out, I'd imagine we'd go for another bank robbery.

"I don't think that's a very good idea." he said with a slight frown. I noticed he, for once, didn't have his gourd around his back, and he seemed to have just woken up.

"You can wear a hoodie, though it will be a little oversized. Besides, it won't take long. Just an hour." I tried convincing him. Not to mention I had no idea what kind of clothes he liked to wear.

"I'd prefer staying indoors." I pouted disappointedly.

"Why? Aren't you curious to the outside world?"

"No."

"You're no fun at all!" I teased, and he looked away for a brief moment.

"Having fun isn't exactly on my to-do list at the moment." he answered dryly.

"Then I'll put it on there for you." I said with a smirk, and with that I shut the bathroom door to wash up, leaving Gaara slightly puzzled.

When I was done, I walked downstairs, seeing most people were there, and announced I'd be going shopping for clothes and asked who'd want to come along. Deidara, Hidan and Suzan were going. The rest were staying in the house. I was fine with that, and after I ate my breakfast I waited for the others to get ready so we could leave. Tobi still wasn't around, but at this point I could only be relieved at that. Ella drove us to the mall. Deidara was wearing a black cap and Hidan had a hoodie with sunglasses. We couldn't let them get recognized. In any case, when we got to the mall we walked into some random shop which seemed to have some cool clothes for both men and women.

Suzan first dragged me to the lingerie section, apparently needing new underwear, and we left the guys in the male section of the shop. She looked at different bras and asked my opinion on them, but honestly, I didn't care. It was just lingerie anyway. When she'd picked a few pairs she liked we returned to the guys to see what they were doing.

"I saw the shirt first, she-male!" Hidan snarled, trying to pull a black and red shirt out of Deidara's hand.

"Well I grabbed it first, yeah!" the blonde retorted, not planning to let go of the shirt any time soon.

"Guys, seriously, you're acting like girls." Suzan observed, though she seemed rather amused.

"The fuck we are! I'm just claiming what's mine!"

"It's not YOURS, dipshit! You didn't buy it yet so don't act like you own it, yeah!"

"Whatever! It would look a hell of a lot better on me, and you'd probably fuck it up in one night anyway!"

"Oh fuck you! Besides, you didn't even try it on yet, you stupid bastard! How do you know it looks better on you, yeah?"

Why did I get the distinct impression that this was not about the shirt but about something else entirely?

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

I rolled my eyes and snatched the shirt away from both of them. "Neither of you are getting it if you're gonna argue about it like little kids. Go find another shirt." I said stiffly, as they were making a scene in the middle of the shop. The two guys also seemed to have realized this by now, and glared at each other before they started to look for something else. Meanwhile me and Alex decided to look for clothes for the other guys in the house, and realized we were going to have to buy a _lot _of clothes. Luckily everyone had cooperated and told us their sizes so we wouldn't have to guess.

Thirty minutes later we finally found the time to look for some dresses for ourselves. I found the perfect dress, and showed it to Alex. It was a short, tight, strapless red dress. It was long enough not to be considered slutty, but short enough to still be sexy.

"Looks good. It would suit your skin color." Alex commented approvingly, and I walked to a nearby changing room with it, to try it on. It had a long but inconspicuous zipper on the back of it, and I could reach it just fine but it wouldn't fucking budge! I sighed, frustrated, and peeked out of the changing room, looking around. Shit, where was Alex when you needed her? I then spotted Deidara a few feet away on my left.

"Dei!" I called him, and he turned around with a frown. Didn't much like that nickname. I gestured him to come closer, and so he did, curiously.

"What is it, yeah?" he asked.

"Uhm… I can't… zip up my dress." I told him awkwardly. He blinked twice.

"Oh." was his only, rather indifferent, response. "Okay, I'll-" suddenly he was roughly shoved out of the way by Hidan.

"Woops, didn't see ya there, blondie." he said unapologetically, an amused grin plastered on his face. I looked up at him, annoyed. Deidara had nearly tripped and fell, and he glowered intensely at the Jashinist.

"You son of a-" before he could lunge at Hidan and throw a punch, the religious zealot pushed me in the changing room and got in himself as well. Of course Deidara wasn't about to follow. I, on the other hand, was blushing mad.

"What the fuck are you doing?" I screeched. Hidan raised an eyebrow at me.

"Calm the hell down and turn around." he responded, that stupid grin still on his face. I reluctantly turned around, my cheeks still completely red. He was standing closer to me than I would've liked, as it made my heart beat faster and made me fidgety. I felt him grabbing a hold of my zipper, and tried getting it up. The beginning of the zipper was on my lower back, a sensitive area to me. He cursed softly when the first three times failed. Of course I was going to tease him about it.

"Can't even pull a zipper up?"

"Shut up! Maybe the dress is just too fucking small, Sunshine." I glanced at him from over my shoulder, insulted.

"Are you calling me fat?"

"Che, you, fat? Get real. You're a lot of things, but fat ain't one of them."

"Was that a compliment?" Hidan fell silent for a moment, probably startled for a second. I smirked. "Hmm, I guess you really _can_ be a nice guy when you try to."

"Shut up." he murmured. I had both my hands placed on the wall for support as he was still trying to zip my dress up without ripping it. When he put a hand on the right side of my waist, probably to help getting the damn zipper up, I nearly shrieked in surprise and immediately spun around, slapping his hand off. He stared down at me, confused.

"Sorry." I said with a pink blush on my cheeks.

"What the hell was that for?" he said irritated, folding his arms.

"You just startled me."

"Yeah, I can fucking see that. You still scared of me, or something?" he asked boldly, getting pissed off. "I thought I already told you, I'm not that kinda guy!" Oh, right. He was thinking back to that _rapist_-accusation. I opened my mouth to say something, when I realized he was rather close, and towering above me while he gazed down at me with a scowl on his face. Suddenly all my senses were on alert. With his face rather close I could see every detail of it, and I could even slightly smell his scent. it was sweet and intoxicating. Then we locked eyes, and I just kept gaping up at him like an idiot when he frowned and backed away, breaking the spell.

"Uh…." _Brilliant response, Suzan, _I scolded myself, mentally face palming.

"What the hell is up with you, lately? Seriously." Hidan said, confused by my behavior. I sighed, rubbing my forehead. I was starting to really fall hard for him, wasn't I? Fuck.

"It's uhm… I think I… actually…." I didn't know what to tell him. How did you handle this sort of thing? _Hey, Hidan, by the way, I know we're supposed to be just friends and all but I'm seriously getting turned on by you lately. _Yeah, couldn't see that ending well.

"Actually what? Spit it out." Hidan said with frustration.

"Nothing, forget about it. I just flinched because I'm ticklish." I lied tactfully, and reached back to try and pull the zipper up one last time. It worked. "Well, damn." I said surprised, and Hidan stared at me, outraged.

"The fuck is that about? I just completely wasted my damn time here! Stupid zipper!" Cursing loudly, he stomped out the changing room. Just a few seconds later Alex peeked inside.

"You done?" I nodded, getting out of the changing room as the mirrors were outside. Deidara was ranting at Hidan, obviously pissed for the stunt he'd pulled off earlier. I walked over to the mirror and looked at the dress in several different angles, when I noticed Hidan staring at me from head to toe in the reflection of the mirror. Even when he noticed I could see him he just smirked mischievously at me, not glancing away even once. It made me feel all tingly inside. The hell did that bastard think he was doing, screwing with my feelings like that? Granted, he had no idea, but he was still a bastard for trying to undress me with his damn eyes!

"That looks good on you, yeah." Deidara noted, and I smiled appreciatively. Then I looked at Hidan expectantly, who stayed silent a few seconds before he finally said something.

"You look hot." he stated, that damned smirk, which created butterflies in my stomach, still on his face. '_You look hot,_' it echoed through my head. _Hot. He thinks I look hot!_

Needless to say it seemed like my plan to not fall for him had just died a sudden and very painful death. Rest in peace.

* * *

><p><strong>That was it. I admit, not as good compared to the last one, at least I don't think it is, considering I wrote it in just one freaking day.<strong>

**I don't really even know what kind of chapter it is, to be honest. Maybe a comedic/romantic build-up chapter? Whatever. If you know, tell me in the reviews ._.**

**So our witch is actually a Greek Goddess. I know. It makes no real sense but just go with it. I have a thing for Greek mythology :D**

**I didn't plan it beforehand, by the way. I actually did the exact same Google search in this chapter to see if there was some sort of goddess I could model my witch after, considering she was kind of lacking an identity up until now xD**

**ANYWAY, next chapter, they go to the club. Dancing, alcohol and immortal witches are involved. AND, the entire chapter will be told from a few guys' perspectives. Also, some more Madara. Because every story needs a little Madara. Yeah.**

**BIG THANKS TO **_**BeneaththeMarquee, Bookielovesanimeeee, yy-ygo-fma, Marskatr, MapleFlavoredVodka, starrsbugg, ktizle13, mks 12 98, Narutofan3, RandomAwesomer101, dettarsvenska, Hanoonee, Fluffy Disorder, SeaDevil, Rakiku Inoe, Logarythm, Woodshrew, 1zara-uchiha1, shadow346437, Deidara's Dragon, xXScarlatto-OokamiXx, The Ultimate Baka, Lost Location, Mahri, Akatsuki's Bitch, Animefangirl95 **_**and**_** NAILxPOLISH**_** for reviewing!**

**Goodnight :D**


	20. Mushrooms

**Sooo… here we go, I suppose? I'll be honest though, I'm not feeling this one either.**

**WAAAAAAH! I'M GOING TO DISAPPOINT ALL OF YOU! T_T or maybe I'm just being a DramaQueen… BUT STILL T^T**

**I just want to write that PERFECT chapter, you know? And this ain't it. Goddammit.**

**As promised, this chapter is going to be all told from the guys' POVs. Because I thought it would be a nice change, for once.**

**Also, OMG OMG OMG OVER FOURHUNDRED REVIEWS OMG OMG OMG THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH!**

**Okay, I'm done being a complete spaz. **

**You can enjoy the chapter now :)**

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><p><strong>Itachi<strong>

I observed Ella after her outburst. She avoided me even more than before, and didn't even dare to look at my face. It had come as a great shock to me. Granted, I knew how someone with her characteristics would think about some of my past actions, but she'd always been such a soft-spoken and polite person. I hadn't expected her to actually be so blunt about it. Had I misjudged her? I suppose I hadn't known her well enough, but I'd been arrogant to believe I could see right through her and predict her next actions. She wasn't as predictable as I'd imagined. Underneath the gentleness, she was a passionate person. She seemed to greatly value the bonds she had with others, whereas I did everything I could to get rid of them. We were similar on the surface, but different underneath.

I kept replaying the scene over and over in my head. As I was sitting on an armchair in the living room, I looked at Sasuke, who was eating an apple while relaxing on the couch. Something about him felt wrong, and how he behaved was completely off. He seemed emotionally very unstable, as if he could have a mental breakdown any second now. It pained me seeing him like this, as I realized I'd turned him into what he was now. Ella was right. I was a coward. I hadn't needed to torture him like I had. I could've just left him alone, waited until he was old enough to hear the truth. That would've minimized the psychological damage. But I'd been selfish, and had wanted him to grow strong enough to kill me, and not just for his sake. I had to be at least honest with myself; the plan had been an easy way out for me. I was ill, and every time I used my Mangekyō Sharingan I could feel my eyes slowly starting to go blind. I would have welcomed death with open arms.

But I couldn't do that anymore. I had to face what had become of my little brother, and not just him. I had to face that there was a bond between me and Ella. One of understanding and of friendship. Why would I run away from it when I could enjoy it? After all, I would leave this world eventually, and now I thought back, there had been no need to distance myself from her this prematurely. In hindsight, I'd probably felt somewhat uncomfortable. Kisame had been the only other person I'd found a sort of friendship with, but he hadn't known who I really was. Ella knew everything. She was the one seeing right through me, not the other way around as it had so often been with other people. It was discomforting, but also somewhat relieving. Around her, I wouldn't have to put up the charade I'd been hanging onto for all those years. Yet I couldn't entirely get rid of it either.

My inner musings were interrupted when I saw Ella coming out of the kitchen. She avoided me completely, making her way over to the chessboard and sitting down, though not even touching the chess pieces once. She wasn't very subtle about avoiding me, was she? My gaze shifted to Kakashi who walked down the stairs. He kept his eyes focused on Ella and sat across her, challenging her to a game and she rejected politely. I probably shouldn't have eavesdropped. Usually I would've focused my attention on other things, but not this time.

"You seem down, something bothering you?" Kakashi asked her nonchalantly, after she'd rejected his game.

"No." she lied, rather poorly. He raised an eyebrow, and Ella sighed. "I'd rather not talk about it right now."

"Alright, if that's what you want." he said with smooth indifference, leaning back in his seat. "So you're going to this dance club as well, I assume?" He changed the subject effortlessly.

"Yeah, I guess. It'll help me… uhm, take my mind off things."

"If it makes you stop frowning, I suppose it's a good thing." Ella folded her arms, her frown only deepening, as if she was waiting for an explanation for that remark. Kakashi just shrugged. "I'm just saying you look a lot prettier when you're smiling." I wasn't quite sure whether that was an observation or whether he was flirting with her. She blinked, a little taken aback. Her frown disappeared.

"So you like seeing me smile, huh?"

"Of course. If it were up to me, I'd make you the happiest person alive." He was flirting with her, but he still managed to be honest.

She was smiling. She was smiling happily, and I felt… unsettled. No, perhaps_ jealous_ was a better word. I hadn't felt envy in such a long time, I couldn't even remember the last time I'd felt it, _if _I'd ever felt it. Kakashi had taken her mind off things so easily, had made her happy with just a few genuine words. I don't think I could've done that. Conversation between those two seemed to flow so easily, as if they were old friends. Ella had attempted to talk to me in such a manner as well, and I'd pushed her away.

"Go talk to her." I heard my little brother tell me rather abruptly. I looked at Sasuke, who was staring at me, seeming to be very annoyed with me at the moment.

"Pardon?" I replied monotonously. He sighed, a slight scowl on his face.

"Never mind."

I was slightly surprised, and a little amused at this.

_To think, out of all people, Sasuke would be the one to give me good advice._

* * *

><p><strong>Kakashi<strong>

"Ah, you win again." I admitted defeat. I'd finally convinced her to play chess with me and she'd won two times in a row now. Ella smiled widely, obviously happy with her victory. I let her have her moment, as long as she didn't start sulking again. I don't know what had happened to make her depressed earlier, but it probably had something to do with Itachi. I glanced at him, feeling irritated by his behavior. It seemed he didn't think Ella was worth the effort, and instead of being honest with her, he hurt her feelings. I supposed he didn't think Ella would understand him, which irritated me even further. She wasn't stupid, nor a drama queen. Perhaps oblivious at times, and adorably innocent… but not stupid by any means. _Adorable? Interesting choice of words on my part, _I said, somewhat surprised at myself.

"You wanna go for a third round?" Ella asked, re-arranging the pieces on the board.

"Yep." I said, as there was nothing better to do and this would keep her from sulking, but then Sasuke walked over, a determined frown on his face. We both stopped and looked at him. He'd observed our matches silently earlier, and I think he'd pretty much figured out the game by now.

"I want a round against her." he said curtly. Me and Ella exchanged glances.

"Okay, sure." I said, standing up and letting him take my seat. It seemed he was set on beating her, considering he held some sort of grudge against her. Probably for stealing all of Itachi's attention. Perhaps he thought beating her in chess would give him some sort of retribution. Either way, they started the game. Ella won the first round pretty quickly, which clearly irritated Sasuke.

"Another round." he demanded. Ella seemed pretty amused. I was standing behind her chair, looking over her shoulder as they started the second round.

Then Madara came walking down the stairs. It seemed he was either bored with being holed up in his room, or hungry. That's when he saw them playing chess, and his interest was piqued. He observed silently, standing next to Sasuke's chair with his hand nonchalantly on the chair frame. Of course, this put extra pressure on Sasuke to beat her, which actually made him play a little better. He even managed to take away Ella's queen. Shortly after, however, he lost.

"Not too bad." Ella complimented him genuinely.

"Hn." he grunted, displeased with his loss. I rolled my eyes at this. He really couldn't have expected to win from someone as experienced in chess as Ella on his first try.

"Sasuke, stand up. I want to play a round against her." Madara stated, and of course Sasuke complied immediately. Ella didn't seem too happy with this, but I was seriously hoping she was going to win. Not only because I was curious to Madara's reaction, but also because it would be funny seeing him lose. He'd figured out the way to play the game from watching Sasuke and Ella play, and didn't need any explanation.

I watched quietly, and saw Ella was rather tense. It was probably the longest match I'd ever seen, but I saw Ella slowly relax as it went on, since she was gaining the upper hand. Then,

"Checkmate! I WIN!" she exclaimed joyously, throwing her hands up in the air as if she'd just won a prize. We all stared at her, and she blinked, blushing furiously and lowering her hands quickly, quite embarrassed. I couldn't hold back my laughter, but then looked at Madara, who seemed quite ticked off and was glaring. Ella glanced at him once then stared down at her knees, as if she'd done something wrong. Sasuke was gazing at the board as if he couldn't believe his eyes.

"I demand a rematch." Madara said sharply.

"Uhm… of… of course."

Something told me that when Ella lost that match, she'd let him win, as it seemed she was rather uncomfortable with him glaring daggers at her and the chessboard. Or maybe her discomfort had distracted her. Maybe a little bit of both. The guy really was a sore loser, but even when he _won _right after his loss he wasn't satisfied.

"You let me win."

"I… I didn't. Really, you won fair and square."

"Yes, you did."

"I did _not_."

"Are you lying to my face?"

"Of… of course not!"

"Why do you insist on lying when it's clear you just handed me the victory?"

"I'm not lying!"

I was half and half expecting this to turn into a childish argument of _"Are too!" – "Am not!"_ any minute now. It seemed Ella had completely forgotten she was scared of him as she argued. From what I could tell, Madara simply wasn't satisfied with his victory. It had been a small one, as he'd just barely won, and I suspected he'd rather completely destroy her instead of winning through luck. After all, he'd been lucky Ella had been distracted, or she would've won a second time. Then the front door opened, and we all looked to see who'd returned. Hidan and Deidara were dragging several bags filled to the brim with clothing, followed by Suzan and Alex who'd probably made them carry all of it.

Ella completely forgot about her argument and immediately stood up, excited with seeing all the new clothes they'd bought. _Never knew she had a thing for fashion._ Ella peeked into the bags curiously, though both Alex and Suzan seemed completely indifferent to the clothes. I glanced back at the two Uchiha and it seemed Sasuke had decided to play a round against Madara, which he was probably going to lose.

"Hey, Kakashi, come get your clothes." Suzan said, and I walked over so she could hand me the (surprisingly) heavy bag. They all looked rather heavy, actually. Alex handed Itachi and Kakuzu their bags as well when they walked over, and they immediately got upstairs without another word. Tobi wasn't around, but eventually Gaara showed up and Alex nearly shoved the bag into his arms, smirking.

"So, because you didn't come with us, you can't complain about the clothes! And I assure you, they're definitely going to make the ladies swoon over you, they'll be swarming around you like-"

"Alex, stop teasing the poor kid." Ella scolded lightly when she saw the startled expression on Gaara's face.

"Sorry, I got carried away." Alex apologized sincerely, though still smirking.

"That's… alright." Gaara said slowly, and then turned around and carried his bag upstairs.

"Hey, you!" Suzan snapped at Sasuke, who looked up disturbed. "Come get your clothes." It seemed while Sasuke disliked Ella, Suzan had some sort of grudge towards Sasuke in turn. He stood up, annoyed his match had been interrupted, and walked over to get his bag. He peeked in it, but then seemed to lose interest and followed Gaara up the stairs. Madara didn't seem to be about to walk up and get his clothes any time soon. I suppose he was expecting them to be brought to him, and Suzan scowled as she walked over to him and handed him the bag. He frowned slightly, staring at the bag as he stood up.

"What did you put in this, a stack of bricks?" he commented dryly. Suzan just gaped at him.

"Uhm… no?"

"That was a joke, girl."

"Oh…."

_Awkward._

* * *

><p><strong>Deidara<strong>

I was more than happy with the clothes I'd picked, though Suzan had advised me to buy some gloves as well. Apparently bad things would happen if people found out I had mouths on my palms. I carried my bag of clothes upstairs, and Alex informed me it was nearly time to leave for the club. So I quickly changed in my room, into a pair of simple jeans and a yellow shirt with a blue vest over it, and wore yellow gloves. The girls had also bought me some weird looking shoes. Sneakers. I thought they looked ugly but I guess it was normal for people here to wear these ridiculously big things. When I was done I got downstairs again and my jaw nearly dropped when I saw how ridiculous Kakuzu actually looked. Really, a suit? Well, it wasn't really a suit, but he had a tie and everything, and someone had convinced him to get rid of his white hood so his dark brown hair was now visible. He had sunglasses in one hand and was glaring death at Hidan who was nearly rolling over the floor with laughter.

The crazy zealot was wearing a leather jacket with a white shirt underneath. It seemed he really hadn't bothered looking good or anything. I rolled my eyes and sat down on the couch, waiting for the others to get down already. Then the Kazekage kid and the Copy Ninja walked down the stairs. Gaara had gotten rid of his gourd and looked quite uncomfortable without it. He was wearing simple clothes, though also tight, red shirt Alex had picked out for him. Kakashi still had his mask on, like Kakuzu, and wasn't wearing anything special either. I imagined the other guys were also wearing simple jeans with shirts or vests.

Everyone, well, all the guys gathered in the living room. Tobi was present as well. He was wearing a different mask. It was still orange, but it was a lot simpler and didn't have the swirly thing the old mask had. It had two holes for the eyes, but I still couldn't see either of them. He seemed to keep his distance from the rest somewhat as well. As the guys were all discussing what to do and how to track down the old witch, I, being bored, noticed Madara looking at Tobi with a scowl on his face for a few seconds, but then swiftly returning to the conversation. I thought it was somewhat strange, but didn't think much of it.

"Where the hell are those chicks?" Hidan loudly complained after five minutes. "Damn, they're taking so fucking long!"

"Shut up, asshole." Suzan's voice came from the stairs and we looked at her. She was wearing the tight, red dress she'd bought with red heels underneath. She hadn't done much with her hair, and as far as I could tell, hadn't put up much make-up either, only lipstick. Alex and Ella were right behind her. Alex had a one shoulder dress, which was purple and about as short as Suzan's. Her blond hair was down today, as she usually wore it up, and she looked pretty good. The purple suited her.

Though Ella, _damn_, it looked as if she was dressed with the intention to seduce every man in the room. Her black dress had a very low back, and the front had a low neckline, and I tried not to stare. It was a simple dress, but she looked damn hot in it. Her hair was down as she too wore it usually up in a ponytail, and was curly, falling down to her waist. High, black heels and she had mascara on, her eyelashes long and thick, and was wearing red lipstick.

"You really overdid it." Suzan remarked when they got downstairs, noticing some of the guys (including me) looking Ella over. The older woman just shrugged, though she seemed quite satisfied with the reaction she got from people. _Okay, when the hell did she turn into a seductress?_

"Try not to make any men fight over you, like last time. We got kicked out the club because you just _had _to have some fun." Alex noted with a frown.

"You guys are such killjoys." Ella said with an innocent pout, still managing to come off as sexy. If she hadn't been three years older than me I would _totally _be putting the moves on her. "It's not like I flirt with just _anyone. _I have pretty high standards."

"True. But the guys you pick always seem to be the most jealous bastards in the club."

"Hey, how are we going to the club, anyway?" Hidan then asked, interrupting their conversation.

"Walking. Guess what? It opened just down the street. Isn't that convenient?" Suzan answered him. Eventually we decided to leave. It was dark outside, but there were a lot of people on the streets, going the same direction as we were. I decided to walk next to Suzan, and we started chatting like usual. She seemed pretty excited to finally go out, and so was I. Being stuck in that house with Tobi and Hidan had been absolute hell. But it seemed Tobi still didn't want to leave me alone.

"Deidara-senpai!" he yelled excitedly, nearly bouncing up and down in joy.

"What is it, yeah?" I grunted unhappily.

"Senpai will dance with Tobi too, right?" Suzan burst out into laughter and I gazed at the masked moron.

"Are you crazy, yeah? Like hell I am!" I screamed at him.

"Why not, senpai?"

"Because… because that's just _wrong, _you idiot!"

"Besides, I don't think you'll like the kind of dancing they do in the club." Suzan remarked nonchalantly.

"What the hell does that mean, yeah?"

"Oh, you'll see."

I frowned at the ominous warning, but didn't respond otherwise, trying to ignore Tobi the rest of the walk there. We arrived at the club, which had gigantic, green neon letters on top of it, spelling _Hecate_. There was a huge line in front of the entrance and two large men standing in front of it, checking who could go and who couldn't. Alex gestured us to follow her, and she walked up to one of the guys, right past the people standing in the line who were basically gaping at us. The girls were mostly staring at the three Uchiha, and the guys were totally checking Ella out, or rather, her behind. She didn't seem to notice, nor did she seem to mind when some guys started whistling after her. One glare from Itachi made them stop, though. _Huh, I never knew the guy was so protective of her._

Alex had a chat with one of the large men, who nodded his head and let us through. _That was easy. _Inside the club was… well, it was chaos. The music boomed through the club, and I swear if it had been any louder I would've gone deaf. There was a long bar where people were ordering drinks. It wasn't very crowded, compared to the packed dance floor. I could only stare at the people dancing, if you could even call it that. They were grinding up on each other. How the hell was that even called dancing? That was straight up humping each other like animals! I noticed it was a lot warmer in here than outside, and it reeked of smoke and alcohol. There were also a few tables at the other end of the club where people could sit and chat with each other.

"Well, this place is… interesting?" I heard Kakashi say unsurely. It seemed even the usually so pokerfaced Itachi was somewhat taken aback by the scene. Eventually we decided to split up. Ella, Hidan, Kakuzu, Kakashi, Itachi and Madara decided to go to the bar to get something to drink. Tobi, Gaara, Alex, Sasuke, Suzan and me made our way to the table. Apparently, according to some retarded law, we couldn't order any drinks because we were all too young, with the exception of Tobi. The legal age to drink alcohol was twenty-one. What kind of backwards law was that? Tch, as if I couldn't get alcohol and get drunk if I really wanted to. Of course Tobi joined us just to annoy me, plus drinking would be annoying for him with the mask.

Either way, this was going to be an interesting night.

* * *

><p><strong>Hidan<strong>

I decided to drink before dancing, if I was even going to dance, that is. Kakuzu sat down at the end of the bar, I sat down next to him, next to me Itachi took a seat, then Kakashi, Ella, and Madara. It was a nice spot, quieter than the rest of the club so it was much easier to understand each other. Ella was the first one to order a drink, and I had no idea what it was but I ordered the same thing. It was some sort of alcohol, that much I could tell, served in a tiny glass. I watched Ella drink it all up in one go and I followed her example. _Holy shit, _I thought as it burned down my throat. It was better than any sake I had ever tasted. I enjoyed the sensation and quickly ordered another one. Everyone had ordered a drink by then as well.

It didn't take very long before a bunch of girls started hitting on both Uchiha. The two were both completely indifferent to them, however. Two chicks walked over to me as well. One of them was even taller than me, which was a big turn off. The other was a little too thin for my liking. They started hitting on me, not so subtly I might add, and whatever small amount of interest I had no completely flew out the window. I didn't like girls who were easy. Not much of a challenge. As the tall, blond chick was chatting away to me, I spotted Suzan on the dance floor after ten minutes. It seemed she'd gotten sick of sitting at the table.

I took another shot of a drink which was called whiskey, as I watched her dance with some loser who was standing right behind her, his hands on her waist. I watched her sway her hips with the rhythm of the music, and completely tuned out the two bitches who were talking to me. Shit, what I wouldn't give to be the guy dancing with her. Lately I'd started noticing Suzan was actually pretty good-looking. Usually this is the point where I started thinking about how I liked her personality, but after five shots of whiskey I could only think about how smoking hot she looked in that dress.

"You're a moron." Kakuzu suddenly said, and I tore my gaze away from her to look over to my partner, scowling at him.

"The fuck?" I asked with a frown.

"Whatever happened to not getting close to her?" he said annoyed, having noticed my gaping at Suzan. I blinked.

"Oh, right! I was… uh… what was I supposed to not do again?"

"You weren't supposed to get attached, because we're going to leave sooner or later, you idiot." he explained, irritated.

"I'm… I ain't attached!" I protested loudly. "It's purely fucking physical, alright?"

"Of course it is." Kakuzu scoffed, and I glared daggers at him.

"Ya know what, Kakuzu? Fuck you. You're the shittiest partner ever! You're supposed to be supportive, you asshole!" I blurted out, and he simply rolled his eyes, proceeding to ignore me. I sighed, and continued watching Suzan dance as the song changed, and her movements got slower and a lot more tempting. Maybe it was the alcohol, but I felt the strong urge to hit the asshole dancing behind her when his hands lowered to her hips. So, I stood up, walked over to the two, ignoring Suzan's questioning stare, and shoved the dickhead away from her.

"I'm gonna dance with her now, so you can piss off." I told the guy, who glared at me, but backed off eventually, considering I was taller and more muscular than him. Suzan had completely stopped dancing and was staring at me. "Well?" I said impatiently.

"Well what?" she responded with a frown.

"Start dancing." She gazed up at me as if I'd started speaking in another language. I grabbed her hand and pulled her closer. "Ya heard me. I wanna dance with you."

"O-oh. Right. Okay, I guess." she stuttered, blushing lightly, and started dancing, though it was stiff and it seemed she wasn't very comfortable. I frowned, seeing this was going absolutely nowhere, so I grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the bar. "What are you doing?"

"You need to get drunk."

"What? Are you crazy?" I ordered a drink, but got a little annoyed with her.

"How come you can grind up a fucking stranger but you can't even just dance with me?" I asked her, as I waited for the bartender to get the drink. She blushed again, and looked away uneasily. "You've been acting weird, lately."

"Shut up." she huffed and I'd barely heard it. What the hell was she being so shy for all of a sudden? I mean, it was cute, in a way, but right now it irritated me. I don't know why I had this incredibly annoying urge to get close to her, but it was what it was and I'd be damned if she wasn't going to dance with me like she danced with the other guy. After four glasses she seemed to be completely drunk already. She really couldn't hold her liquor. Ella was probably going to be pissed that I'd let Suzan get drunk like that but at the moment I really didn't give a shit. In hindsight, it was probably really selfish of me to get her drunk just so she could dance with me, but hey, it wasn't like she _rejected _the drinks I offered her.

"You wanna dance now?" I asked, and she giggled, nodding her head like a child. I got up, telling the bartender to give the bill for the drinks to Kakuzu as a payback for his asshole-ish behavior, and dragged Suzan to the dance floor with me. And when she started dancing, did she _really _start dancing. Shit, she was even grinding against me and I felt my pants getting tighter with the second. I couldn't help myself and put my arms around her waist as pulled her as close as she could get and was really getting turned on. A little voice in my head told me I should probably stop before this got any worse. Then I swiftly killed that voice. I told myself, _it's purely physical, just a one-time thing._ I knew damn well this wasn't going to be a one-time thing. Now simply dancing with her was enough to make me happy, but I knew I was going to ask for more eventually.

Was it purely physical though? I wasn't really in the right state of mind to think about that, but I was pretty sure that if she'd been a complete bitch to me I would've killed her already. Personality definitely was a factor; I liked her sharp tongue and her temperament. Not to mention that she wasn't moaning and bitching about my religion like the others sometimes did (especially that bastard Kakuzu). She was a lot more tolerant than others, and she seemed to genuinely care about me. It did bug me that she was an atheist though. I was supposed to hate those kind of people, after all, though I couldn't bring myself to hate her.

I was going to fall in love with her, wasn't I? Fuck.

* * *

><p><strong>Gaara<strong>

I was sitting at the table, next to Alex. Next to her, Sasuke had taken a seat. Deidara and Tobi were sitting across from us. Suzan had left a while ago, to go dance. Speaking of which, she'd had a chat with me, asking me not to say anything about Tobi's identity, as in my world he'd revealed himself as Madara Uchiha in the Kage Summit. She said it would make things unnecessarily complicated, and I agreed. There was no need to create drama when we had an enemy to defeat and (somehow) needed to work together. The club itself was too loud for my liking, not to mention I didn't much like three of the four people sitting at my table. One had actually killed me, the other had lost his mind, and the third was planning on brainwashing everyone. How was I supposed to work together with these people?

"Ooooh. Well, Tobi doesn't want to do this kind of dancing with senpai either!" the masked man exclaimed, pointing at the people who were… basically grinding. I felt embarrassed just looking at it, so I looked away as much as possible, pretending that the glass of soda on my table was the most fascinating thing in the world.

"Hey, can you at least_ try_ not to look like you're frustrated the entire time?" I heard Alex ask Sasuke, and looked over at them.

"I'm not frustrated." he replied coolly, leaning back in the seat.

"Constipated, then?" Deidara roared with laughter as Sasuke glared fiercely at Alex, who raised her hands. "Just joking!" I couldn't help but smile lightly.

"I'm not here for the jokes." Sasuke said, a slight frown on his face. "Neither are you. We're only here to track down that Hecate. That's all."

"Man, you're so boring." Alex complained, and looked at Deidara. "So, got any nice stories to tell?"

"None that I can think of, yeah."

"OH! Senpai, what about that one time with the mushrooms!" Alex looked from one to the other.

"Mushrooms?"

"No! Forget the mushrooms, yeah!" I was curious by now as well, and stared at the two of them.

"But senpai, it was so funny! Senpai thought he could fly-"

"No, Tobi!"

"-so then he took his clothes off-"

"TOBI, I WILL KILL YOU!" Deidara screeched, starting to strangle Tobi, which earned him quite a few looks from the people around us. I was just confused. What were they talking about? Alex was grinning widely. She seemed like the kind of person who wanted to have fun above all other things. Or at least, now she seemed that way.

"Come on, Dei, tell us already!" she pleaded with him, and the blond stopped trying to kill the masked man to look at her and scowl. He sighed, rubbing his forehead.

"Fine. Me and this moron were on a mission, yeah, and we were in the middle of nowhere. So I told him to go look for some food while I set up a camp. So then he brings me some mushrooms and I'm surprised that the idiot actually found something edible, yeah. Anyway, turns out, they were actually hallucinogenic mushrooms. I only found out after eating them." Deidara was silent. "That's it. That's all I'm gonna tell you." Alex was pouting disappointedly. I figured what happened after he'd eaten was too embarrassing for him to tell. So Tobi started telling it instead.

"Senpai was acting sooooo weird! He said to Tobi,_ "Tobi, I love you, yeah, seriously, I love you like a brother,"_ and then he started screaming he was a bird and flailing his arms and I don't know why but senpai took his clothes off and tried jumping off a cliff, and he nearly broke a leg, and it was-" Tobi took a deep breath "-SOOOOOOO weird!"

There was a complete silence at the table as Deidara's face turned red from what I suspected was both anger and embarrassment. Alex was the first to burst out into giggles.

"O-oh… oh my god! Are… are you serious?" she said in between her laughing. Sasuke simply rolled his eyes. I wasn't sure if I was disturbed or amused by it, to be honest. "You… you tried jumping off a cliff naked? What the hell, Deidara?"

"SHUT UP, YEAH! It was his stupid fault!" he yelled at her, pointing at Tobi. "I hate you so much right now." He hissed, glaring at him as Alex was holding her stomach as she was laughing.

"But… but senpai said he loved Tobi!"

"Oh… oh god, I can't… can't breathe…."

"Dammit stop laughing, Alex!" Deidara snarled, now looking at Tobi. "I don't love you, you moron! Those were the mushrooms talking!"

Again, _these _were the people I was supposed to work together with?

* * *

><p><strong>Madara<strong>

I greatly disliked this place. It was too loud, it smelled horrible, the music was horrible, and most people here were completely vulgar and crude. Not to mention the annoying women who were trying to get my attention, and failing. If they'd been any more audacious they probably would've just tried to force themselves on me. I wasn't here to get wasted and flirt with strangers, I was here to track down that hag that had dared to bring me here for no other reason than for her own entertainment. My revenge would be sweet indeed.

I constantly looked around the club to see if I could spot anyone that looked like an old lady. For a moment I thought I saw someone that looked like an elderly woman, but it turned out to be man. _What in the name of…_? What kind of ridiculous place was this? Every now and then I'd look away to order a drink. Eventually I got sick of trying to look for the woman and looked over to Itachi. I hadn't really had a chance to talk to him and Sasuke. After all, I was curious as to what would become of my clan in the future.

"…so I was like, no way! But he like, _totally _meant it and so I told him to like, go away, but he got mad and everything-" I hadn't realized a woman had been talking to me the entire time. I tended to automatically tune out annoying things. I looked at her with a slight frown.

"Do I look like I care about your life story? Go away, you're giving me a headache." She didn't seem to appreciate my honesty. Her dark haired friend apparently thought this was somehow a hint that I liked her better. Fact was, I hadn't even noticed her until she decided to speak up.

"Yeah, why don't you go get us some drinks?" the dark haired girl sneered at her friend. My frown deepened. People who so _willingly_ backstabbed others disgusted and irritated me even more than people who didn't know when to shut up.

"I don't like you either. You're even worse than her." I told the girl brusquely. She seemed rather insulted by that. _Can't imagine why_, I thought amused. _At least I was honest with her. She should be thanking me for being so genuine._

"Worse?" she said in annoyingly high pitched voice, as if I told her she looked fat. Oh, well, there's an idea. But chances were, if I told her that she'd probably start crying or cause a scene, and I wasn't in the mood for that. "I don't think you know what you're missing out on!"

"Nothing you have to offer me interests me in the slightest. Now leave. I won't repeat myself again." I stated coolly, turning to the bartender and ordering another drink. Her friend pulled the dark haired girl away from me before she started yelling profanities at me. Ella chuckled, as she was sitting next to me, and I glanced at her. "What's so funny?"

"You seem pretty experienced in rejecting the ladies." she remarked, taking a sip from her drink.

"That's because I am." I replied. I remembered my younger days, when I'd been a kid, no older than twelve. Girls had started stalking me, especially at that age, and at some point I'd decided to just insult them, albeit subtly, until they got the message and backed off. So far it had worked like a charm time and time again. Izuna hadn't wanted to do that, however, so every time some annoying fangirls showed up he'd resort to running away. As a result he'd become quite skilled in escaping all sorts of situations. I supposed fangirls were good for _something, _at least. I grabbed my drink and took a large sip, starting to feel rather bitter when I thought about him. He'd passed away just six months ago, after all.

"You're not going to start sulking are you?" Ella asked with a frown, staring at my expression.

"Who says I'm sulking?" I scoffed, my frown instantly disappearing.

"Your face does." Kakashi then remarked dryly, joining in on the conversation and Ella giggled at that. I took an even larger sip of my drink, ignoring them both, until I saw Ella leaning over to the bartender, batting her eyelashes.

"Hey there," she said with a slight smile on her face "must be tiring, huh? Working whole nights in places like these." The bartender gaped at her face, then at her cleavage, then back at her face. I rolled my eyes. Men really had no tact whatsoever. With men, of course I was referring to _other_ men. I myself was never that indiscreet, or stupid.

"Y-yeah… really tiring." the man stammered. Itachi let out a sigh, and that was probably the most I'd heard of him the entire time we'd been here.

"You're pretty cute, you know that? I bet customers hit on you all the time."

"I-I am? I mean… yeah.. uh, they do! I get asked out all the time, you know."

"What is this?" I suddenly heard Kakuzu snap at the other bartender, and leaned back a bit to see what the fuss was about. I'd recognized the man the first time I'd seen him, as he'd tried assassinating Hashirama once. Needless to say, he'd failed. I thought he'd been dead but apparently he'd gotten away.

"The bill, sir." the other bartender said somewhat nervously, showing him the piece of paper. Kakuzu was probably glaring at him from under his sunglasses. Those things looked ridiculous, by the way, but at least they were useful.

"I never ordered any of these drinks." Kakuzu snarled at the man.

"Y-your friend told me I could put it o-on your tab, sir."

"My _friend_?" Kakuzu repeated, for a second looking a little startled. "Hidan!" he hissed when realization hit him. Things didn't look too good for that albino guy. Not that I minded. He was loud, and obnoxious. Maybe a beating would teach him to keep his mouth shut for once.

"Er, Itachi-san?" Kakashi then asked, and my attention focused back on my descendant. His gaze was fixated on the fly buzzing in front of his face. Was he drunk? Judging from the several glasses in front of him, I'd say that wasn't a very far-fetched guess. "Itachi?" Kakashi repeated, his voice louder, leaving out the honorific. Itachi tore his gaze away from the fly and looked at Kakashi.

"Hmm?" he said, slightly dazed.

"I think you've had enough drinks."

"I think… you're right." Ella interrupted her flirting with the bartender to look at Itachi, whose eyes seemed to glaze over as he stared at a half-empty cup in front of him. She seemed to want to smile for a moment, but quickly refocused her attention on the bartender. All I knew was, he was a strange drunk. Most people would be giving declarations of love or getting into fights. He just sat there, staring at his glass.

"So, what's with the name of this club?" Ella asked the bartender as she twirled a lock of her hair around her finger.

"Well, the owner of this place is, believe it or not, some elderly lady with the same name. I think she's Greek, or something." Ella seemed rather surprised at this.

"Seems like she wants us to find her." I noted, starting to dislike her even more. Was she really underestimating us? Granted, the odds we could win with this little information were abysmal, but she didn't seem to believe we could improve our odds, which ticked me off. I ordered the nth drink of that night. Though I was already buzzed, I figured I could handle one more.

"Do you know where she is?" Kakashi asked immediately. The bartender shrugged.

"Every now and then she comes to check out the club, but she usually goes to the VIP area."

"Is she here today?"

"Yeah, I think so, but usually around this time, she'll just get up and leave."

"Oh. Would you be so kind enough to point us to the VIP area?" Ella asked politely.

"Woah, babe. You can't just barge into the VIP area?"

"Why not?" Itachi asked, having woken up from his trance like state. The bartender frowned at him.

"Because it's a VIP area. Duh."

"And?"

"_And_? Only important people can go there, Sherlock." Itachi was silent for a moment.

"Who is Sherlock?" The bartender blinked.

"Is that a serious question?"

"Yes."

"Dude, have you been living under a rock or something?" Itachi frowned.

"No, I've been living in a house. Why would anyone want to live under a rock?" Ella burst out into laughter, and Kakashi seemed rather amused by that. Itachi stared at them with a puzzled expression on his face, obviously not understanding why they were laughing. It appeared my descendant's brain stopped functioning when he was drunk. I couldn't help but chuckle. I was starting to get drunk as well, which was a bad thing. I was a horrible drunk, if I got really wasted I'd turn into a complete mess. Ella stared at me, surprised at my laughter.

"What?" I said with a slight frown, composing myself and trying to, at least stay semi-sober.

"Nothing. Anyway, let's… oh my god, that's her!" she exclaimed, pointing at someone. It was, indeed, an elderly lady, making her way towards the exit.

"I'll go tell the others." Kakashi said, getting up and making his way towards Sasuke's table. Meanwhile we all stood up as well, Ella putting a few bills on the table to pay for the drinks, and Itachi nearly stumbled out of his seat though he kept a straight face. He really was the most wasted out of all of us, which kind of surprised me. He hadn't seemed like the type to drink much, or maybe he couldn't hold his liquor. I noticed Ella eyeing him worriedly, though she made no real effort to help him, yet. I wondered for a moment what was going on between those two, but then quickly lost interest and focused on Hecate instead, immediately following her.

_I __**will**__ get my revenge._

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><p><strong>Oh god. When am I finally going to write a chapter I'm happy with? You won't believe how many times I've erased certain things and replaced them… my fingers hurt xD<strong>

**I hope you enjoyed! Next chapter will be mostly… plot. I think. I'm not sure yet. Actually, I think it will be partially plot, and partially… other… stuff… right. **

**Sooo, tell me what you think! Did I get the guys' POVs right? Did I? DID I? It's much harder to write than one might expect. God, I'm such an insecure little whiner ._. Sorry for my complaining, guys D:**

**Also, sorry if I don't respond to your review! There's just so many of you reviewing, it gets hard to keep up with, you know?**

**BIG THANKS TO **_**Bookielovesanimeeee, StarrlettAngel, pay backs a bitch sucker, KitKatTenshi, yyh-ygo-fma, RandomAwesomer101, Hanoone, Suigetzu, Coccinelover, dettarsvenska, Akatsuki's Bitch, Woodshrew, Ravenfeather3, BeneaththeMarquee, Triple T 123, Animefangirl95, Beeanssx, Good boy-chan, Logarythm, mks 12 98, Rakiku Inoe, JerrieHigarashi16, xXScarlatto-OokamiXx, The Ultimate Baka, ktizle13, Crimson Trickster**_** and **_**NAILxPOLISH**_** for reviewing! Love ya!**

***Sigh***


	21. Witch hunt

**Thanks for all the awesome reviews, guys! I really appreciate it :D**

**ARGH. The new manga chapter, number 576, came out today.**

**Everyone on every Naruto Forum ever went apeshit, of course. Forgive me for this rant, –SPOILER ALERT!– but, I need to get this off my chest: ITACHI, WTF? Y U RUN AWAY FROM UR RESPONSIBILITY? Oh and, LOL at Madara being called a sexist all of a sudden by nearly everyone. Wtf. Seriously. All he said was that Tsunade was a weak woman compared to Hashirama. Which she is. Where is the sexism in this? No, seriously. I don't get it, it seemed like a basic observation to me. And what is her comeback? "I HAZ WILL OF FIYAH!" Oh yeah, Tsunade, that's great, because we all know you can just "will" someone to death, am I right? It's not like Madara has a Rinnegan… or EMS abilities… or Mokuton… or… Hashirama's face on his chest… ._.**

**Anyway, I have ranted enough for today.**

**Enjoy the next chapter! :D**

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><p><strong>Ella<strong>

This seemed like a very bad idea. Okay, sure, we had plenty of people, but she was a _Goddess_. How did one kill a deity? Never mind the fact that the two strongest men we had right now were completely wasted. While Madara was composed and it was barely noticeable, Itachi had a hard time walking in a straight line as we followed the divine being out of the club. He bumped into several people, and I was afraid he might fall down or something, so I wordlessly grabbed his hand and started guiding him through the crowd of people. I glanced at him once and he seemed a little dazed, staring blankly at me as I pulled him towards the entrance. It wasn't like I suddenly hated him, after all. We were going to have to talk eventually, but right now our main focus had to be Hecate.

Speaking of which, where was she going? We followed her outside, where there was still a rather large line in front of the club. She was surprisingly fast, though she was walking and we were nearly running. How the heck did she do that? I glanced back and saw that the others had caught up by now, following Kakashi who'd seen us. I noticed that as we followed her, there were less and less people around us until she lead us to a square which was completely deserted. I halted, not noticing I was still holding Itachi's hand. Instead I noticed how cold the wind was and how much darker it was, because the streetlights were off, for some reason. It was hard to see clearly in the dark.

"So, you took the bait." She turned around to face us in her blue flower dress with her signature purple, leather purse. I frowned at this. Bait? Of course. It had been a trap, then.

"You are the one who goes by the name of Hecate, then?" Madara said, and it was more a statement than a question, although it was phrased as one. She smiled lightly.

"I see you've done your homework, boy." If this hadn't been a serious situation, it would've been amusing seeing Madara being referred to as a "boy". Naturally, he scowled at this, but chose to ignore it otherwise. He was standing just a few feet away from her, closer than the rest of us. I briefly looked around but noticed Suzan and Hidan were missing.

"Where are…?" I started asking Kakashi quietly, who was standing next to me, but interrupted my own sentence when I noticed him staring, almost _glaring, _at something. I followed his look, which lead me to my hand, and noticed I was still holding Itachi's hand with it. Embarrassed, I quickly let go, and Itachi was too zoned out to notice. "Uhm, Kakashi?" I tried again, and he looked up.

"They were _completely_ wasted, and wouldn't have been of much use. I left them at the club." he said with a shrug. I frowned deeply. Suzan was drunk? No doubt because of Hidan.

"I think we should've left him back there as well," I said, failing to hide the worry in my voice as I looked at Itachi.

"He'll be fine." Kakashi mumbled, and I detected some irritation in his voice. I sighed and redirected my attention to the Goddess.

"You think you can defeat _me_?" Hecate laughed humorlessly. "Please, I don't think even you truly believe something as preposterous as that, boy." Madara remained silent. "You could all just easily end this. You still have one wish, but of course, that would mean admitting def-"

"I refuse."

"…Hmph. Fine, have it your way, but just know you cannot beat me." Hecate sighed, but then a sinister smile formed on her face, one I did not like for one bit. "In any case, I led you to me because I want to discuss the rules."

"Rules?" Kakashi repeated with a slight scowl. "This isn't a game."

"Oh, but it is! At least, it is for me." Hecate responded, rather cheerfully. "In any case, I think we should be clear about something first. Your goal is to kill me then, no?"

"K-kill?" I repeated, so startled by the sudden statement I spoke in a rather high pitched voice.

"Of course, girl. That's what most of you want, anyway." Hecate said sweetly. I looked at Madara.

"We… we don't _have _to kill her, do we? I mean… it's not like she has actually hurt us, right?" He stared at me with a slight frown, eyeing me curiously, but someone else answered for him.

"Ella, she admitted to creating a tsunami and killing thousands of people." Alex stated, somewhat annoyed. "She's a huge threat and needs to be taken care of." I scratched the back of my head, staring at the deity disguised as an old lady. It still didn't make me feel very comfortable.

"Right…." I muttered uneasily. Logically, it was probably better that way but it just went against everything my parents had thought me and also against my personal values.

"Now that we've established what the goal of this game is," Hecate continued calmly "let's move on to the rules. You can use anything in your arsenal, _except _the wish I gave you. Unless you want to leave, that offer still stands. That is my only demand."

"That's fine," Madara responded perfectly cool "then I demand that you cannot use your portals or any other teleportation powers." Hecate narrowed her eyes, and I remembered how she'd gotten rid of Pain, deciding he was too much of a threat to her with his Rinnegan.

"Fair enough. I need to even out the playing field, after all, or this will simply be boring. You'd get defeated way too easily." she said nonchalantly, not seeming to feel threatened at all. "Any other demands, kids?"

"How about… not creating any natural disasters?" Kakashi said dryly.

"Do you really believe I would be so desperate as to bring out the big guns?" He simply shrugged.

"You never know."

"Very well. Anything else?"

"Any chance you want to reveal your weakness to us?" Alex asked bluntly, and Hecate laughed, shaking her head at the same time. "I'll take that as a no…."

"Stick to combat magic." Kakuzu then said. This, Hecate seemed to disagree with.

"So you won't even let me heal myself, should I _somehow _get injured by you brats?"

"What's wrong, yeah? Where did all that confidence go?" Deidara taunted, and she glared fiercely at him.

"Very well. I won't use my sorcery for anything else but combat, I won't turn nature against you and I will not use my portals. Is that all?"

"You can't ask any other Gods or Goddesses for help." Gaara said, his arms folded as he stared at her. Hecate pursed her lips. "Or are you admitting you can't handle us on your own?"

"Have it your way!" she spat. "No disasters, no portals, only combat magic and no other Gods or Goddesses."

"I'm glad we could reach an agreement." Madara said, with a mocking undertone in his voice. "Though I'd prefer it if you chose a different form. Killing an elderly lady isn't a very honorable victory, after all." Hecate raised her eyebrows, a smile forming on her lips.

"Oh? Would you rather I looked like this?" White smoke appeared all around her, and when a gust of wind blew it away, we were standing face to face with the image of Hashirama Senju. I saw Madara's jaw clench, as he glared at the Goddess who'd morphed into his rival.

"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded to know, obviously displeased. Hecate, or Hashirama – I wasn't sure how to refer to her now – seemed rather entertained by his reaction. _Oh no she didn't._

"What's wrong, boy? Didn't you despise the Senju? I figured this should make it easier to fight me, should it not?" she spoke in what was probably Hashirama's voice. Well, this was probably really pissing Madara off by now. Hecate, however, was unimpressed. "Very well, then. Ah, I know who would be perfect!" More white smoke, but then it was revealed who Hecate had morphed into now. Oh _crap. _I saw Madara's eyes widened for a moment, then the fury building up in his expression.

"You _dare…._" he growled with venom in his voice. I started feeling highly uncomfortable from the sheer killing intent coming off him and he wasn't even looking at me. Hecate, or rather, Izuna Uchiha, smiled.

"Why so angry? I thought you'd be happy to see your little br-" Before anyone of us could stop him, he was already attacking. Hecate was surprised, and his fist had been less than an inch away from her face when she – or Izuna, this was really getting confusing darn it – ducked and jumped back, taking distance. "Well, that was rude." she commented with a frown. "Here I thought you were used sparring with him and whatnot, so I figured fighting me in this form would come more natural to you. But not even a thank you for my thoughtfulness? I think you-" Suddenly a clay bird shot right towards her and she had to evade that one as well. Disturbed, she glared at Deidara.

"You talk too much, yeah." Oh god, was this going to turn into an all-out battle? I took a few precautionary steps back. Everyone seemed pretty alert now.

"Hmph. Rude brats." Hecate huffed, unhappy with being constantly interrupted. Black holes began to form around her, and my mouth fell open in horror as I saw dark, ghastly figured rise up. They were clad in white, ragged cloaks. Their hands were bony and almost skeletal like, their breaths came out like smoke, and their faces were hid under their hoods. In total there were seven of them, standing protectively around their mistress. What were those? Demons? Ghosts? Whatever they were, they utterly terrified me. "I won't fight you personally just yet. You're not ready for it, so you can play around with them instead." She smirked tauntingly, before turning around and leaving.

"You're not getting away!" Madara yelled, shooting right past the ghouls and following her. He just managed to avoid the ghosts whose arms had extended and had shot towards him, but Sasuke covered him by blowing fire to the arms and burning them before they could reach him. Kakuzu, Kakashi and Itachi decided to follow Madara and the Goddess.

"H-hey! Wait! Don't just split up like that!" What I was actually saying was, "_Don't leave me with these creepy things!" _and apparently Kakashi had gotten my message because he grabbed my hand and started pulling me with him. Well, anything was better than to stay with the demons. I was fit enough to keep up with them, thank god the Goddess was taking it slow. The others stayed behind to take care of the ghouls. Couldn't say I envied them.

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

I'd been vaguely aware of what was happening as I'd been dancing. Everything was so blurry and all I could think about was that I was having an awesome night and didn't want to stop moving my body any time soon. I barely noticed the two arms wrapped around me, or I would've done something about them already. Instead I thought I was just having harmless fun, which couldn't be further from the truth. If I hadn't been drunk I would've been freaking out by now, but yeah, intoxication tends to screw with one's thought-process. Eventually I started to get tired, though, so I wriggled my way out of Hidan's arms and clumsily stumbled over to a table to sit down. He followed me, annoyed.

"Hey, the hell? We were just havin' fun." He complained, sitting right next to me. I blinked slowly.

"But… but I… got… like, so tired." I said drowsily. "Uhm, Dracula? Where's… where is the rest?" I questioned, trying to regain my senses. Hidan frowned, looking around.

"Well, shit. You're right! They just dumped us!" he exclaimed loudly.

"They did?" I gasped. "But whyyyyy?" I whined disappointedly, feeling like crying. "I don't wanna be dumped! Come on, let's… let's go look for them!" I said, getting up and dragging him up with me as I walked through the crowd of people.

"What? No, screw them! Besides, Kakuzu is gonna strangle me when he sees me again."

"Why… why would Stitches do that?" I asked, stopping dead in my tracks and looking at him with wide eyes. He chuckled.

"Ha, Stitches! I'm remembering that one." he said to himself. I started dragging him again and he let me, every now and then helping me walk straight or prevent me from falling flat on my face. I don't even know where I was going, I was just walking around aimlessly and somehow stumbled upon a backdoor exit from the club. We got outside and I looked around.

"Uhm… how did we end up here?" I asked confused, looking around.

"You dragged us here."

"I DID?" Hidan facepalmed, but didn't say anything as he started walking. I followed him numbly, staring at my surroundings. I then felt a sudden… coldness creeping up on me. It was not just coldness, it was this ominous feeling, as if someone was watching me. My drunken euphoria got replaced by fear and I froze, gasping for breath when I felt something like a hand on my shoulder, though it was a lot colder and more… bony.

"The fuck?" Hidan then exclaimed, jerking me away and punching whatever it was that grabbed me right in the face. He stood in front of me, so I couldn't see what he'd punched. I took a few steps back, giving him enough space to fight if it was necessary. I then saw it. What the _fuck _was that thing? I frowned, and though intoxicated, I figured Hecate had something to do with this ghost suddenly showing up all of a sudden. It didn't seem fazed by Hidan's punch. Its arms suddenly extended and managed to wrap themselves around his waist. "The… LET GO YOU PIECE OF SHIT!" Hidan screeched furiously, as the thing approached him.

"Kick it in the balls!" I yelled.

"IT DOESN'T HAVE BALLS!"

"Oh…." I spotted a led pipe (why did those things always show up at the weirdest moments?) and grabbed it. Without thinking I ran up to the ghoul and smashed its face in with the pipe, though nearly tripping over in my drunk state in the process. Hidan broke the arms off the thing and threw the remains on the ground. The creature emitted a loud growl, then hunched over.

"What the shit is it doing?" Hidan wondered aloud, grabbing the pipe from my hands as he would be more proficient with handling it and I quickly covered behind him.

"Maybe it wants to be friends?" Hidan glanced at me with a blank look on his face.

"Fucking seriously?" Suddenly the thing charged at us, screaming like a banshee. "SHUT UP! For Jashin's sake, I think I might go deaf!" Hidan yelled, and swung the pipe like a baseball bat, hitting the thing in the face much harder than I did. I heard a sickening _crack_, and the thing fell down on the ground, but after mere seconds got up again. "The fuck? Hey, you can't stand up after I smash your skull in! Only I can do that, asshole!" he snapped, but I was getting panicked.

"KILL IT WITH FIRE!" I yelled.

"I don't know Fire Style jutsu!" Hidan yelled back.

"Why not?" He shrugged.

"Never bothered learning." he stated as he watched the thing sway around a little, as if it were drunk itself. Then it screamed again, and Hidan shot towards it, hitting it in the face again but this time when it was down he kept hammering on it. "Why… won't… you… DIE! Stupid fucker!" When he was finally done and the thing had been reduced to nothing but what seemed to be a pile of bones, the bones just reattached themselves and the thing started moving again.

"Eeeeeew!" I whined, positively creeped out. Hidan grumbled something unintelligible.

"Okay, I need Kakuzu to burn this fucker to crisps, so let's start ru... on second thought, I'll just carry you. You'd probably run right into a fucking lamppost or something." He said as he lifted my up in his arms. I wrapped my arms around his neck and cringed when the ghoul started screaming again. Hidan started running, though we both had no idea where we were going and just hoping we'd run into the others.

It seemed luck was on our side. Or not, considering the other guys were fighting the same screeching, banshee/ghost things, except these were wearing white cloaks. Ours had a red cloak. Alex was standing back while the guys were fighting the things, namely Sasuke using fire and Deidara happily blowing them up. It also seemed that the white-cloaked guys stayed down once they got hit. Ours was a lot more determined to kill us.

"Hey, emo kid! I need fucking fire, ASAP!" Hidan yelled. Sasuke turned around, annoyed, then created a fireball, blowing it to the ghoul which burned to ashes in mere seconds. I was relieved for a few seconds, when the ashes formed into the thing again and built itself up, as if nothing had happened. "What the fuck?"

"Sasuke, use your Amar…. Atam… Amare… the black fire thing!" He rolled his eyes but did what I said anyway, activating his Mangekyō Sharingan.

"_Amaterasu!" _The thing burned slowly, crumbling down to the ground. I looked at Sasuke, whose right eye had started bleeding. He put a hand over it, deactivating his MS quickly. At least that was taken care of.

"So… now what?" Alex said, relaxing once the ghosts were gone.

"Oh! Tobi knows! Let's go look for the others!" he said energetically, running off. We followed him, and I was still being carried as I could really barely run in my drunken state. Deidara cast a glance at me, and I could see he was annoyed but he didn't say anything. I started feeling a little nauseous, and just hoped we would get this over with quickly before I needed to really puke.

* * *

><p><strong>Kakashi<strong>

The Goddess dodged any attack we threw at her. Madara's aim was off and so were his reflexes, though, considering he was somewhat wasted, but for a drunk he could still aim pretty good. I glanced at Ella, who seemed to have not much trouble keeping up with us, even while she was running in those ridiculous heels! I don't know what happened to Itachi, but he was suddenly fully capable of running in a straight line. I supposed having a threat nearby had made him alert and he was forcing himself to pay attention. I was only a little buzzed, as I'd managed to sneak a few drinks in when no one had been looking. Kakuzu and Ella were probably the most sober out of all of us.

"Give it up, kids!" the Goddess yelled. "You're in no state to fight me!" She was annoying me by now, so I threw a few kunai at her which she dodged, but just barely. Hm, was she getting tired from running? I imagine she didn't have much stamina, considering she just teleported everywhere. We eventually followed her into a dark alleyway, but it was a dead end. She stopped running and turned to face us. We were all standing right next to each other, cornering her; she had her back against the wall. Or Izuna's back. Er... right.

"Well, looks like you're trapped." I noted. "This might be a good time to morph into someone else before Madara tries to rip your head off." She glared at me.

"Oh, but can he do that when I look like his dear little brother?" she cooed sarcastically, looking at the oldest Uchiha.

"You're a fake. I'd be doing Izuna a favor." he replied readily, glaring right back at her. She narrowed her eyes.

"You don't honestly believe I'd let myself get caught this easily, do you?" she sneered.

"But why are you doing all of this?" Ella suddenly questioned. "It can't be _just _for your amusement, can it? Or is Suzan right? Are you just… bitter?"

"_Bitter_?" she spat. "Bitter doesn't even begin to cover it!" she yelled furiously in Izuna's voice. "I was worshiped! Women called upon me during childbirth, sailors and shepherds asked me for protection, entire villages built statues of me so I would protect them from evil spirits, and then what happens? You _disgusting_ mortals start calling me an evil witch, ruining my name and my reputation, and then, in a matter of hundred years almost all of you forget I exist! The other Gods see me as a complete _joke _now, and it's all YOUR fault!" She was mainly looking at Ella. _Well, she definitely has some issues. _

"Am I supposed to care for your sob story?" Madara said indifferently. "Because I really don't. Now prepare to die." He pulled out a kunai, holding it ready and he was probably going to try and slit her throat.

"Don't underestimate me, boy!" she screeched, raising her… his… well, _a _hand. A red, glowing, spear-like thing appeared in her palm, and shot towards him with incredible speed. His reflexes were slow because of the alcohol, and he would've gotten hit, hadn't it been for Ella shoving him out of the way. I would've done it myself, but I'd been standing too far away. But, Ella wasn't a ninja, she wasn't nearly fast enough to dodge the spear herself, and you can imagine my shock when the spear shot straight into her right shoulder. I could honestly say for a whole second, I was absolutely horrified.

"Oh my," the Goddess sighed displeased "I hadn't been aiming for _you. _Oh, you poor thing. That isn't going to feel very pleasant, you know." Itachi immediately kneeled down next to her, checking her wound. Kakuzu sighed, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like _"Foolish girl,"_ as he stared down at her.

"It looks like a regular wound." Itachi said with a frown. Ella herself was wide-eyed for a second, her expression changed into a grimace, and then started trembling. She was obviously in agony, holding her arm. Madara spared her a glance, before looking back at the Goddess, and so did I. She seemed perfectly calm, all of a sudden, staring intently at Ella.

"Ella, how are you feeling?" Itachi asked. Ella opened her mouth, but then froze for a second before she started screaming on the top of her lungs, clutching her arm even tighter.

"What did you do to her?" I snapped at Hecate, who frowned for a mere second.

"That red spear will make the spot that's hit feel like it's on fire. I suggest you take it out. Honestly, I wanted to teach _him _a lesson, not the girl, but oh well."

"If it wasn't meant for her, then remove the spear and heal her." Itachi said in a tone that sounded icy, even for him.

"Hmm, no, I don't think I will." she said over Ella's screams. "It was, above all, meant as a warning, after all, not just as a punishment. Learn from this warning. I can do much worse things, and next time, I _will _hit my target. Goodbye, children." More white smoke, but when it cleared this time, she was gone.

"Dammit!" I heard Madara mutter softly and irately. Had the man been any drunker he would've started cursing like Hidan, no doubt. I looked at Ella, who'd now gritted her teeth and tried desperately not to scream, her eyes shut tightly, though she did let out plenty of pained noises.

"Ella, I'm going to pull it out now, okay?" I told her. She glanced at me, nodding, sweat covering her forehead from the effort of trying not to scream. I grabbed the spear as Itachi held her tight by her other shoulder and right arm. I pulled the spear out in one swift movement, throwing it on the ground. Ella let out an agonizing scream, gasped for breath and for a few seconds seemed relieved, but her shoulder was still pierced. It had been a narrow spear, so there was only a small hole, luckily. Madara looked down at her.

"Why did you do that?" he asked, with curiosity instead of concern. Ella let out a loud sigh, but winced when I started bandaging her wound.

"I… I don't know," she muttered uneasily "I just... just did it instinctively." she muttered, strained. Then she looked at her wound, and turned even paler than she usually was. "B… blood…." she whispered with a horrified look on her face, and promptly fainted, falling back into Itachi's arms. I blinked, surprised at her sudden reaction.

"So… she has a phobia for blood." I stated a little surprised.

"It would appear so."

"OH MY GOD!" I turned around and saw Suzan stumbling over to us. The others had arrived as well. "What the fuck happened to Ella? Why is she bleeding? Huh? Who did this to her? I'll kick their sorry asses to- ow!" She walked right into a lamppost, having been obviously drunk and completely disoriented.

"I told ya so." Hidan said, chuckling. Suzan glared daggers at him but looked at Ella. Alex stared at her wound, worriedly.

"What happened?" she asked, and I explained the situation to her as I finished bandaging her up. The others were talking with each other. Namely Hidan being strangled by Kakuzu, who was yelling something about a tab. "Oh, yeah. She can't stand blood. But, she'll be okay, right?"

"Yes, but she won't be able to use her right arm for a few weeks."

"That's okay, Ella is a leftie anyway."

"ELLA-CHAN!" Tobi exclaimed, dramatically falling on his knees next to her with his hands up in the air, looking up at the sky. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-"

"SHUT UP!" Deidara yelled annoyed. "She'll survive, you moron!" Tobi stopped screaming for a second.

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

"Oh, good! It would be so sad if Ella-chan died, she always is so much nicer than senpai."

"Oi, what's that supposed to mean, yeah?"

"And she's so much prettier than senpai too! Actually, she's better than senpai in almost every-" _Commence the strangling_. I had to admit, Tobi was a very convincing idiot, which was unnerving. Deidara really had no idea, and I would assume he'd completely lose it if he ever found out about how powerful Tobi really was. I looked back at Ella and I saw Itachi wanted to lift her up. Feeling irritation rise up, I stopped him.

"I'll carry her. You're drunk." He frowned at me, probably just as annoyed as I felt right now.

"I'm fine." he said curtly, and lifted her up with ease. What happened to his drunkenness? Either he was straining himself or he'd somehow sobered up. I could honestly say I didn't much like seeing Ella in his arms for more than one reason. I told myself it was probably because Itachi was drunk and could easily drop her, but if I was honest, I just… didn't like the sight of it. I'd much rather carry her myself, but I didn't want to come across as possessive. Meanwhile both Alex and Suzan were fussing over Ella, who was unconscious. At the same time, Sasuke was asking Madara what had happened (he hadn't been paying attention to me when I'd explained it to Alex), who told him the short version.

"So she got away?" Sasuke uttered displeased.

"It was to be expected that she'd escape somehow." Madara responded grudgingly. "Did you find out anything about those ghouls she summoned?"

"The ones in the white cloak are easy to kill. But there was one in the red cloak that just kept rebuilding itself. I had to use my Mangekyō Sharingan to get rid of it." Sasuke answered immediately. His ancestor stared at him.

"You unlocked the Mangekyō Sharingan?" He seemed slightly impressed, even if it was hard to tell from his expression. Sasuke seemed to take some pride in having impressed the man, as the corners of his mouth curved slightly upwards, nearly in a smile. "How did you unlock it?" Sasuke's eyes widened slightly, visibly startled, not having expected that question. He remained silent. Itachi glanced at him, and sighed.

"It's a long story." the boy eventually murmured.

"I'd like to hear it."

"I'll… I'll explain when we get back to the house."

That wasn't going to be a very pleasant chat.

* * *

><p><strong>So, this one is shorter than the last one. For obvious reasons. I mean, I upload fast and all, but the last two chapters were 8000 words each and they really exhausted me :P<strong>

**I wanted to upload it last night, but it was like three in the morning when I was finally finished, so I said "Fuck it, I'll upload it the next morning," and went to sleep xD**

**So yeah, mostly plot here. IT'S ON! Oh yeah, it's definitely on!**

**Next chapter… well, you're gonna see Sasuke and Itachi have a little chat with their ancestor. I can already tell you Madara will be less than pleased :P Oh, and uhm… yeah, other stuff as well. Not sure what, but I'll figure it out. Probably gonna give Gaara more screen-time next chapter, since he's new and I want to flesh out his character some more. **

**Wow, I even got reviews in foreign languages! While I do know some French (merci pour le review! Wait, was that correct French? … Oh god, I just totally embarrassed myself, didn't I?), I can't read/speak/understand Chinese (thanks for reviewing anyway! :D), so thank god for Google Translate xD**

**BIG THANKS TO ****_Good boy-chan, Triple T 123, ShareBearTheDeathBear, x Valor, Animefangirl95, mks 12 98, yyh-ygo-fma, RandomAwesomer101, Woodshrew, xShadowAllstarx, dettarsvenska, The Ultimate Baka, Rakiku Inoe, ktizle13, TheVGMAAddict, Suigetzu, Hanoone, BeneaththeMarquee, Logarythm, SeaDevil, xXScarlatto-OokamiXx, Akatsuki's Bitch, FuzzyShadowFoxx, NightDreamer567, JerrieHigarashi16, Marskatr, petite fleur, Yuki-sama_, **_**darah, dark-spirited Bakura **_**and _Dark Akuma Hunter_****! I LOVE YOU GUYS! ^_^**

…**Well, guys? I should probably say "I LOVE YOU GIRLS!" right? How many guys are reading this, anyway? Not that it matters, I just got curious all of a sudden xD**

**Anyway, I'll see ya next time! :D**


	22. Two sides of one clan

**Sasuke**

Suzan opened the door of the house and walked in first. The rest of us followed her, pulling off our shoes and jackets. I could tell my brother had been drinking, because the minute he put Ella down on the couch he nearly collapsed himself. It surprised me, I would've never expected Itachi to do something like that, or to let himself go like that. I suppose, he was a human too after all, and maybe the stress just got to him. Whatever the reason, it was very strange seeing him like that. I glanced at the unconscious woman, who was being tended to by her blond, annoying friend while Suzan just watched. Most of the Akatsuki members decided to hang around the living room, and if I'd had a choice in the matter I would've preferred to stay there as well. Too bad for me, I owed Madara an explanation. A very lengthy explanation. Needless to say, I wasn't looking forward to it, but it couldn't be avoided. If he demanded it, I couldn't refuse.

It had been quite the shock seeing him, of all people, falling down out of that portal. I thought the only Uchiha I would ever see was Itachi, but there he was, the most legendary of them all. I wasn't sure how to feel in the beginning. It was weird seeing your ancestor, and I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. I had mixed emotions. I was amazed, and I suppose I felt pleased to some extent as well, but I'd also felt somewhat insecure for the first time in a long while. I felt like I wanted to prove myself worthy of being his descendant, and when I'd caught that impressed look in his eyes when I'd told him about my Mangekyō Sharingan, I'd felt incredibly proud.

Now, however, I felt anxious. I didn't know how he'd react to the news that me and my brother were the only Uchiha alive. But, then that depended entirely on which timeline he came from, right? If this was before the clan turned their backs on him and supported Hashirama Senju, then he'd probably be… livid. If this was _after _that, then he probably wouldn't care too much, but I don't think he would appreciate the fact that Itachi killed them under order of the council, which Madara had probably despised back in his day. _Back in his day… _I stared at him curiously as I studied his face. He couldn't be much older than twenty-five. Around that age would be a good estimation. That would mean he was probably younger than Kakashi right now. He noticed me staring.

"Follow." he only said, then glanced at Itachi, who was sitting on the armchair, drinking a glass of water as he watched Alex treat Ella's wound properly. "You as well, Itachi." I watched as my brother now stood up without a hint of being drunk on his face. Either he was a master of suppressing it or he'd simply… gotten rid off his drunkenness, somehow. I noticed him casting an aloof glance at Tobi before he got up and put his glass away to follow. That reminded me, Tobi _had _declared he was Madara Uchiha. Needless to say I didn't believe him for one bit. But Madara… it seemed like Madara knew him. I would have to ask him about it later on.

Me and my brother followed him as he walked to the kitchen, where the only person hanging around was Hidan who was eating some strawberries. He looked at all three of us, frowning for a mere second and without uttering a word he left, walking right past us. I noticed dirty dishes were stacked almost everywhere, leaving little room for anything else. Itachi sat down on a chair, and looked expectantly at Madara. I, on the other hand, was still rather anxious. The legend turned to me, his arms folded.

"I suspect I will not like what I'm about to hear?" he said coolly, leaning against the table.

"That depends," I responded quickly "I know you've already founded Konohagakure, as Kakashi mentioned it and you seem to understand what he was referring to. But was the Hokage of the village elected yet?"

"No." Madara said after a brief silence, his expression unreadable. "It was founded a month ago. We've been too busy building it, so no, the Hokage hasn't been chosen yet." That meant the clan hadn't betrayed him yet either, which meant… he wasn't going to like what we were going to reveal to him. I glanced at Itachi; he had a deadpan look on his face. But then he spoke as well.

"A question, if I may." he said politely.

"Go ahead." Madara responded in a bored tone.

"Have you implanted Izuna's eyes yet?" Both me and Madara froze for a brief, almost unnoticeable moment at hearing the unexpected questions. Madara stayed silent for longer than was entirely comfortable to me.

"Yes, I have." he answered slowly, clearly not happy with being confronted with that.

"Has he passed away?"

"He has."

"I assume the peace treaty with the Senju didn't sit too well with you, then?" Madara narrowed his eyes, but didn't respond. Itachi, I realized, was trying to exactly gauge what Madara's reaction would be when we told him about the Massacre. "Do you resent your clan for-"

"No. Enough questions." he snapped abruptly. "A great majority insisted on a treaty, and perhaps it was time for one as well. I don't blame my clan for wanting peace. But, that does not mean I trust those Senju." He seemed honest about that, at least. "If you're asking all these questions, I assume there's an entire story behind Sasuke's Mangekyō Sharingan?" He now looked at me, and I nodded slowly. "Start from the beginning, then."

"I think it is better if I told this part." Itachi said respectfully. Madara nodded once, and Itachi started to explain about the Kyuubi's attack. I watched Madara's expression change as he heard the story. He conveniently left out the part with Tobi, though, as we still didn't know what the deal was with Madara and Tobi, and mentioning him might make things more confusing and complex than they needed to be. Instead Itachi made it seem like the Kyuubi escaping had been simply because the seal was too weak to hold it. But Madara probably was suspecting something by now, even if he didn't show it.

"Let me guess," he then interrupted Itachi's story "they assumed our clan to be behind the attack?" Itachi nodded, but spoke quickly after that.

"We were relocated to a corner of the village where we could be more easily monitored. In response to being suspected of the attack and the relocation as well as several other factors of mistrust between the Uchiha clan and the leaders of the village, our clan planned a coup d'état." This part was where thing could go horribly wrong, this part right here. I tensed as I kept my eyes on Madara, who was scowling deeply by now, while Itachi continued on, though slower, choosing his words carefully. "I was thirteen at the time, and supposed to spy on the village for our clan. However, I feared that another war breaking out would be inevitable if we tried to overthrow the village, so I began spying on our clan instead." There was a brief silence. Madara did _not _look happy.

"So you betrayed your own clan?" The question was asked in a seemingly calm tone, but just the look in his eyes told me that Madara was anything but pleased with Itachi's actions.

"In essence." Itachi answered honestly, and continued. "The Sandaime Hokage wanted peaceful negotiations, and to resolve the situation without there being bloodshed. However, the council disagreed. They ordered me to eliminate the entire clan, and I carried out that order." Another silence filled with tension and anxiety. My anxiety, mostly, even if I did not show it. Itachi seemed perfectly composed like always.

"You expect me to believe," Madara said slowly, a menacing tone to his voice "that a thirteen year old _boy _killed the entire clan on his own?"

"I do admit, I had help. But that is irrelevant." Itachi just looked at him with a perfectly blank expression, while Madara's darkened.

"I should _kill _you, on the spot." His voice was low, threatening, intimidating, and my previously calm face broke out into a frown, as I alertly watched and almost _waited _for the situation to escalate. The only question was, who'd strike first? Probably Madara.

"You may certainly try, but it won't get us anywhere." Itachi said, and I could see his previously relaxed state had tensed somewhat. He was on his guard. But there followed no attack. Only an ominous silence and more words soaked in venom.

"So you valued the orders of some _Senju lapdogs_ above your own clan?"

"I valued peace over war."

"Going on a rampage and killing your clansmen isn't what one would call a 'peaceful' action."

"The action itself wasn't. But the result was best for the village." I had backed away by now, and inconspicuously leaned against the wall, pretending I hadn't stepped away out of caution but because I wanted to lean against something. They were glaring with a fierce intensity at each other and I'd rather not get in between. Madara stayed silent for a while, looking like he was itching to kill, but then looked at me.

"You didn't kill _everyone._" he noted icily, still talking to Itachi.

"Correct, I did spare Sasuke. I couldn't bring myself to kill him." Itachi admitted readily. "I threatened the council not to harm him to secure his safety. I wanted for him to grow strong enough so I could die by his hands, and I made him think I hated him so his hatred would help him acquire the necessary power." He was silent, and both of them now looked at me, expectantly. I was a little taken aback, having heard the story now come from Itachi himself... it was a very unpleasant experience. But I managed to stay composed.

"So I did. I… killed him. That is how I unlocked the Mangekyō Sharingan. The reason why he's alive here is because the Goddess plucked him from an earlier timeline, and me from a later one." Of course we'd left out a lot of details, such as me defecting from Konoha. But that didn't matter, it seemed Madara had quickly understood everything and seemed to try and make up his mind about what to say. Either way, he was furious, and trying to keep his emotions in check. He'd probably figured killing Itachi in the situation we were in now wouldn't be very productive.

"I can already tell Hashirama will be chosen as the Shodai Hokage." He then decided, a sharp bitterness to his tone. "Things wouldn't have turned out like that if I'd been chosen…."

"Yes, that is true. The main reason why you weren't chosen was because of your great mistrust in the Senju and your clansmen believed you wanted more war. Which is why they'll turn their backs on you." Madara froze up like a statue. _Dammit, Itachi, why did you say that? _I thought frustrated, glaring at him. Either he wanted to piss Madara off, or the alcohol made him talk more than he should.

"They'll _what?_" Madara hissed, as if he'd just been stung by something sharp.

"They will turn their backs on you, and support the Senju, because they recognize the Senju strive for peace as much as they do. They were under the impression you simply wanted more war, so-" Itachi's sentence was interrupted when Madara slammed a hand down on the table, truly looking furious.

"More _war_?" he spat resentfully. "They think I want more war? Have they lost their damned _minds_?" Both me and Itachi stayed quiet as we watched the clan head completely lose his cool. "Can't they see that handing the leadership over to the Senju will only come back to bite us? The story you just told me proves it, there is no way that would've happened if the Uchiha had had a stronger position in the village! They should have listened to me all along. We should have never accepted that damned peace treaty!" Itachi dared to interrupt Madara as his voice had began to grow louder with every word.

"With all due respect, Madara-sama, but would you have not oppressed the Senju if you were to be chosen as the Shodai?" Madara's eyes widened in outrage, but Itachi continued as if they were having tea and chatting amicably on a pleasant Saturday afternoon. "Either way, choosing one leader from the Uchiha or the Senju to take control of the village can only end in disaster. The Senju would not have stood by and let you do as you pleased and as history points out, nor would the Uchiha stay passive forever."

"Oh?" Madara scoffed loudly, a mix of rage and mockery in his voice. "And what do you suppose I do upon my return to my time, _boy_? There can be no peace between our two clans, that is a truth that should be painfully evident, especially to you." Itachi was silent.

"There are two other options. But I do not know whether your pride will permit you-"

"Watch you tone!" Madara snarled instantly. Itachi closed his eyes for a few moments, having realized that he'd crossed a boundary. Perhaps the alcohol _was_ influencing him. All the while I'd been silent as the grave and watched. I did not know whose side to pick, but I was tempted to say Madara had a point. If he'd been the Shodai, the Uchiha would've had a stronger presence in the village and the Uchiha Massacre wouldn't have happened. That was… that was all that mattered to me.

"I apologize." Itachi spoke, opening his eyes again. Madara stayed silent, glaring at him all the while. "I know that if Hashirama will be chosen as the Shodai, you will probably leave the village. But if you stay composed, and accept the decision, there will be no question that you'll assume the position of Nidaime Hokage after Hashirama."

"Second? You think I will settle for _second_?"

"Or," Itachi continued, undeterred by Madara's derisive tone "you set your differences aside with Hashirama and propose to rule the village together. Either way, you'll be in a leading position, and a lot of bad things could be prevented from happening in the future. That is, if you are willing to. If not, I understand your decision and will accept the order of things as they are now." I gazed at my brother, wondering how he could be so calm and composed after having consumed an incredible amount of alcohol and then facing a furious Madara to top it off. Both of us waited for the clan head to respond, when suddenly the door burst open and Suzan, once again, came stumbling in like a drunk this time. She didn't even seem to care Madara was utterly infuriated or that there was a distinct tension in the atmosphere.

She walked over to the fridge, opened it and then let out a whine. "Where is my chocolate milk?" she complained. She then looked over to us, then blinked once, as if she was confused. "Why… why are you dudes looking at me? Do I have like… something on my face?"

"You interrupted our conversation." I said dryly, and she kept staring at me dully, before resuming her search for her precious chocolate milk.

"Whatever, bro." _Bro? What?_ I glared at her, as she was disregarding us completely, though in her drunken state I doubt she'd even care if I threatened to throw a chair at her head. Madara raised one eyebrow, and then frowned slightly.

"Girl. Get out." he ordered, having regained his composure. Suzan pouted.

"Fine! Meanie-face." she huffed, walking towards the door.

"...Meanie-face?" She turned to face Madara.

"Yeah!" she exclaimed. "You have a face, and you're mean! So you're a meanie-face!" She stuck her tongue out in the most childish manner you can imagine, and walked out the kitchen. Madara had a perfectly blank look on his face as he watched her, but I was scowling. Wasn't this woman supposed to be older, and thus more mature than me? I rolled my eyes in annoyance, but I had to thank her. At least the tension had gone away because of her interruption. I then remembered a question I'd had earlier.

"I have a question." I stated, getting Madara's attention. "Have you ever met Tobi before?"

"The masked man?" I nodded. "He has approached me once before, but I didn't think much of it at the time." There you had it. I was now a hundred percent certain that Tobi was not Madara Uchiha. But then who was he? Actually, it didn't really matter at the moment. We had more important things to worry about, such as that Goddess. Madara was about to say something else, when Alex came walking in.

"Anyone hungry?" she asked. No response from any of us. "You could've just answered with _'no'_…" she mumbled annoyed, walking over to the fridge and pulling out some food to prepare. She then stopped for a second, stared at the dirty dishes and sighed dramatically.

"How is Ella doing?" Itachi asked. I gritted my teeth. Truly, I could not understand _what _my brother saw in that good-for-nothing woman. She couldn't fight, and got herself injured as well. The only thing she was good for was cooking. He should've been paying attention to _me_.

"She's alright. She regained consciousness by now, but… er, well, she's in a lot of pain." What was so special about her, anyway? He'd gladly talk to her, but to me? Oh no, then the conversation got awkward!

"That is unfortunate." In fact, every time I talked to him I always was the one to initiate the conversation! He was just running away from his damn responsibilities as a br- "Sasuke, is something bothering you?" My train of thought stopped for a second, then proceeded to crash into a mountain.

"No, nothing." I shrugged it off indifferently. In fact there _was _something bothering me but I wasn't about to spill it and show my weak side when Madara was present. Alex frowned at me, but didn't say anything as she cut up some vegetables. I didn't know who to side with. On one hand, you had my big brother, someone I'd used to look up to when I was little. I spent so much time hating him, even _killed _him, and now I got a second chance. But on the other hand, you had Madara, the strongest Uchiha in history. I couldn't exactly disagree with his judgment either, things would have been better for the Uchiha if he'd been elected the Shodai and Itachi… Itachi just shouldn't have betrayed us. I watched the legendary man as he left the kitchen.

So on whose side was I, really?

* * *

><p><strong>Gaara<strong>

"What is that?" I asked curiously to no one in particular, looking at a weird, black device sitting right next to the giant, thin television. I'd never seen a television like that, but right now the strange device was more interesting. Most people had gone to their rooms to get some sleep or just have some time alone.

Both Suzan and Ella had returned to their rooms as well, Suzan probably keeping an eye on her. She didn't need much tending to, as we'd already bandaged her up and the wound wasn't that bad when examined closely. It was a small hole, and would probably leave a scar but it would heal eventually. It was only unfortunate that we didn't have any sedatives, as Ella was in a lot of pain, even if she tried not to show it and shrug it off. But I did think it was weird to let a drunk tend to a wounded person.

"That is called a PS3." Kakuzu answered dryly, waking me up from my thoughts. That didn't really satisfy me.

"What does a PS3 do?"

"Apparently it is used to play games on."

"What about that thing on top of it?"

"That is a controller."

"What is it used for?"

"It goes together with the PS3."

"What about-"

"Hey!" Alex opened the kitchen door, peeking inside the living room. "Can two of you guys help me with a few chores?" she asked sweetly. The only ones in the living room were me, Kakuzu, Hidan (who was passed out on the floor), Madara playing a board game with Sasuke, Tobi and Deidara. Well, I'd take any chance to not be in the same room as Deidara, who was busy drawing something on Hidan's face, so I stood up.

"Oh! Tobi wants to help too!" The man got up and ran towards the kitchen like a maniac. I sighed, regretting my decision to help already, but walked in the kitchen nonetheless. Well, it looked… horrible. Dirty dishes stacked almost everywhere. Someone hadn't done the dishes in _days._ I frowned. Itachi, who was sitting against the table contemplating God knows what, didn't seem bothered by it in the least.

"Don't you have a dishwasher?" I asked monotonously. Alex scratched the back of her head.

"Well, Hidan managed to break it so… we've had to do it on our own but… ehm… we kinda got lazy, I guess? Anyway, I'd really appreciate it if you guys did it for me because I'm gonna cook dinner and I can't do both!" She smirked apologetically. I sighed, but I was hungry by now, so I supposed I could lend her a hand.

"I wanna dry!" Tobi yelled enthusiastically. It was unnerving how well he performed his little act, not to mention the fact that I felt naked without my gourd. Reluctantly, I pulled my sleeves up and started washing the dishes.

"Thanks guys." Alex said as she prepared the food.

"Drying, drying, drying, dry, dry, dry the dishes!" Tobi sang with no particular melody, as I handed him every plate I washed.

"So Gaara, how do you like it here so far?" Alex asked politely, probably just making small talk.

"It's a very… interesting place." I eventually said, not knowing what else to say. It was a very loud world, that much I could tell. But also unfamiliar. It didn't have the pleasant, homily feeling Sunagakure had. That could be because it wasn't my home, but it was something else as well. It just felt like such an impersonal and unfriendly place. I didn't feel comfortable being in a house with such dangerous people either and hoped I could just return to my world soon. No doubt it was chaos with me suddenly absent. I was supposed to be a commander in the War after all. But maybe it wasn't all terrible. The girls seemed nice enough, and I felt sorry for them for having to put up with so many people.

I glanced at Itachi once, who'd grabbed an apple and was eating it with a contemplative look on his face. Suddenly Tobi's singing stopped. I looked at him suspiciously, and he turned to look at me. I then saw his Sharingan glistening in the light through the only hole on his mask. Instinctively I tried to take distance, bumping into Alex, who shrieked. I heard a loud _"tsss"_ noise and Alex gasped as something fell on the ground.

"OW! Ow, ow, ow, ow!" she cried painfully. There was a pan on the floor and Alex was holding her hand, her eyes tearing up a little. "Goddammit!"

"I-I'm sorry," I said awkwardly, realizing she'd burnt her hand "it was an accident." She quickly put it under the water in the sink, with a deep scowl on her face.

"That hurts like a _bitch_." I heard her mutter. She glanced at me. "It's… alright. Ow…."

"Let me see." I gently pulled her hand out the water and looked at the wound. The entire lower part of her palm seemed to have been burned.

"Oooh, that doesn't look too good!" Tobi chimed in, peeking over her shoulder. She saw the glare I was giving him and now stared at him as well, frowning. Then he chuckled. "If it is any consolation, I only meant to scare him a little." he stated in his real voice.

"That doesn't make me feel better."

"Too bad for you."

"Ugh. The food is ruined too. I hope you're happy." Tobi shrugged indifferently, walking towards the kitchen door.

"I wasn't hungry anyway." he replied amusedly.

"You're such a prick!" Alex angrily yelled after him as he walked out of the kitchen, quickly putting her hand back under the water. Well, she certainly had some guts to scold at him like that. She sighed, staring at her hand with a pained expression on her face. She noticed me looking. "Don't worry, I don't blame you." she muttered with a frown.

"I'll clean up." I decided, still feeling rather guilty despite her words. I reached down to pick up the frying pan first, and cleaned the fallen vegetables up when I noticed Itachi suddenly stood up from his seat and walked over to a cupboard. He pulled out a little, green bottle and silently grabbed Alex' hand, pulling it out from under the water.

"What's that?" she asked curiously.

"Aloe Vera gel. It will help against your burn." he said calmly, rubbing the gel on her palm. She winced at the touch, and suffice to say that I was baffled was an understatement. Since when was Itachi Uchiha this caring? I kept staring at him with wide eyes, until he noticed me looking and sighed, putting the bottle back in the cupboard again. Alex seemed glanced at me, then looked back at Itachi.

"Thanks, I really appreciate it. Hey Gaara, wanna see something cool?" she said with a fake smile, dragging me away with her other hand.

"Wait-" she dragged me out the kitchen into the living room. I frowned. "Why did you do that? And what is wrong with-" She put her hand on my mouth, glancing at Kakuzu who was listening in on our conversation.

"Do continue." he stated dryly. It was evident there was _something _weird going on with Itachi. Back there he hadn't seemed like the merciless killer I'd heard rumors about at all.

"We… we weren't talking about anything important, it was just… Kakuzu, what are Deidara and Tobi doing?" I then noticed the blond Akatsuki member sitting atop Hidan, and the other drawing something on his chest. I raised my eyebrows and walked over to the three men, one of which who was unconscious. Deidara chuckled, holding a black marker in his hand. I blinked, staring at the crude and vulgar markings on his face first. There was a… well… er… a penis drawn right on his forehead, and some other stuff such as "_I'm a douche!" _on his jaw and chin. Also, a round circle around his eye and a mustache. Then on his chest, Tobi was drawing his mask on Hidan's stomach with his bellybutton as the hole, and they had apparently… drawn breasts on his chest as well. Then there were smaller drawings of birds and flowers on his neck and the rest of his exposed torso.

"PFFTHAHAHA!" Alex guffawed, doubling over in laughter, holding onto my shoulder or she would've gone through her knees. Tears of amusement welled up in her eyes. I just gazed at her, then looked back at the drawings. Suddenly the man started waking up again, probably being disturbed by all the noise Alex was making by laughing. Deidara jumped off him as if he were on fire, putting the marker away and Tobi took distance as well. Hidan frowned, opening his eyes and staring at the four of us. Alex, Deidara and Tobi were trying not to chuckle and giggle. I just gaped blankly at him. My sense of humor was less crude than this. I felt actually kind of bad for him. That wasn't permanent marker, was it?

"The fuck? Aw, shit… my head…." he whined, slowly getting up from the ground. He gazed up at us, then glared. "The hell are you three giggling about like little fuckin' schoolgirls, eh?" The drawn mustache on his face contorted slightly with his facial expression, and Deidara nearly lost it.

"N-nothing, yeah." he stated unconvincingly between his snickers. Kakuzu gave Hidan one look, and if I didn't know any better I could swear he was smirking. Both Uchiha glanced at him. The oldest one looked away, appearing to be apathetic to the entire situation, and the younger one rolled his eyes, sighing in annoyance before returning to his game. I stared at him for a while. This Sasuke seemed a little… different from the Sasuke that had attacked the Kage Summit. Less insane, I should say. There was a different aura surrounding him now, but I couldn't quite tell what it was that had changed. I glanced at Alex. Did this have something to do with Itachi? Most likely. Though perhaps Madara's presence had influenced him as well.

"If it's nothing then stop fucking laughing!" I frowned slightly at Hidan's foul mouth, then looked at the other three who were holding back their laughter. It did seem my earlier assessment of Alex was right; she seemed to really be one to love pulling pranks. Kind of reminded me of Naruto in a way.

"Okay, Hidan-san! We're not laughing at _you _by the way!" Tobi said cheerfully, and Deidara's laughter immediately stopped. "Oh no, we'd never laugh at you! Or… at something you have on your face… no! Dear me no, we would never do that, right, Deidara-senpai?" Hidan's eyes widened, and Deidara glared murderously at the masked man.

"Tobi you IDIOT!"

"Waah! Senpai, don't kill me!" Meanwhile Hidan rushed over to the shiny, black television to look at his reflection. His jaw dropped, and Deidara made a run for it.

"DEI-DA-RA!" Hidan screamed furiously, setting in the chase. He tackled the blond as the bomber had tried to escape upstairs, and they rolled off it, wrestling. "THIS HAD BETTER NOT BE PERMANENT!"

"Hidan-san! DON'T KILL SENPAI!" Tobi shrieked, flailing his arms wildly. "Senpai can't help it that he likes drawing penises on other people's faces!" Alex burst out in laughter again, and Deidara growled.

"SHUT IT, TOBI!" I gave up trying to get some sense out of the situation, wondering how the two Uchiha could possibly ignore such noise (must be some sort of gift only Uchiha have), and promptly sat down next to Kakuzu. At least he seemed sane.

"So that guy was your partner?" I asked, looking at Hidan.

"Unfortunately."

"Must have been tough."

"You have _no_ idea."

* * *

><p><strong>Well… this chapter was mainly Uchiha and Gaara. Because… er… I felt like it. Also kind of an aftermath of the whole fight and stuff. But as you can see, the little talk the Uchiha guys had was the main point of this chapter. I told it from Sasuke's POV because he's kind of caught in the middle right now and it would be a lot more interesting. I think I'll do an Itachi POV next chapter? Who knows. Let me know whose POV you'd like to see in the reviews ;D<strong>

**I'll tell ya though, the Uchiha part? Hardest thing I've ever written. So please tell me if I did well. If you're not satisfied or if it's really horrible, I'll gladly rewrite the entire scene. I just hope it isn't**_** that**_** bad xD**

**Next chapter- time to research on how to beat the Goddess! Yep, they're going to try and find her weaknesses and a way to kill her or defeat her, at the very least. Also, random stuff happens. Also, tension between certain people. Also… er… right.**

**By the way, completely useless info, but I confirmed that at least three guys are reading this fic! xD**

**BIG THANKS TO **_**SeaDevil, Yuki-sama, petite fleur, Dome, Hanoone, RandomAwesomer101, dark-spirited Bakura, Woodshrew, FuzzyShadowFoxx, Rakiku Inoe, ktizle13, Bookielovesanimeeee, BeneaththeMarquee, mks 12 98, Akatsuki's Bitch, yyh-ygo-fma, Good boy-chan, HeroOfFanfictionJustice, MillaDragon, x Valor, The Ultimate Baka, NightDreamer567, Pervy Fox Spirit, Marienella, Crimson Trickster, ZodiarkSavior, Vendelareader, Suigetzu, NAILxPOLISH, Twisted Unicorns**_** and **_**Marskatr**_**! LOVE YOU GUYS!**

**See ya next time! :D**

**WAIT! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAIT! Nearly forgot to ask you guys something! Silly me! ANYWAY, I was entertaining this idea for a while after some of you asked me this past week, "Cloud, is there going to be a sequel?" And honestly, who knows? It would be pretty fun for me to write, as I'm having plenty of fun with this story alone.**

**BUUUUUUT, I value consistency, and if I'm going to write a sequel I'm going to have to adjust the plot somewhat from this chapter on. So, I thought, why not ask everyone? It's actually up to you guys, really, because either way it's completely fine with me. If you wanna see a sequel, then sure, I'll write one. If not, then that's cool too. Just vote on the poll I put up in my profile, and we'll see where it goes. **

**BYE! ;D**


	23. Not a love triangle

**ZOMFG OVER 500 REVIEWS WTF HOW THE FUCK DID THIS HAPPEN? I'M SO HAPPY!**

**But anyway, this is going to be not much of an eventful chapter (I think? Every time I say this you guys find some sort of event that I hadn't thought was very significant before and you prove it was VERY significant and make me feel like a dumbass for not seeing it before). It's going to be mostly... character... relationship... based... stuff? **

**God, I don't know. Just read it.**

**Enjoy teh chawpter :D**

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

To say it was simply painful was putting it lightly. I desperately needed painkillers, because now I was just in agony. I was lying down on my bed, staring up at the ceiling while Suzan was contently sleeping on the chair which was placed next to my bed. She shivered lightly, probably being cold since the window in my room was open and she didn't have a blanket. Instinctively I slowly, very carefully got up, feeling a sharp pain shooting through my shoulder but I ignored it. I walked over to the open window and closed it with my left hand, then grabbed a thin blanket from my bed and put it over Suzan. I wouldn't be able to sleep with all this pain anyway. She stopped shivering and I smiled. She really looked so peaceful, almost like an innocent child. In some ways, she wasn't very mature and closer to Alex' level than my own. It was endearing.

Though, Suzan was still distinctly different from Alex. While Alex was upbeat and always ready to make new friends and have more fun, Suzan usually closed her heart off to most strangers and was as cold and indifferent towards them as she could get. You had to work to gain her approval and earn her respect, or you had to leave an incredible first impression on her. She got most of her joy from proving she was right, from thinking, from reading, from gathering knowledge. Alex got her fun from other people; having fun with them, having fun at their cost, it didn't matter, as long as there were others present to experience it with. As for me… I suppose I was more similar to Alex in that aspect. I had the most fun when I was around my loved ones.

The next morning I still hadn't slept much. I'd dozed off every now and then, but when my body turned on its own during my sleep my aching shoulder kept waking me up again. I'd given up sleeping by the time the sun came up, and instead watched Suzan as her eyes fluttered open, and she groaned. Hangover.

"Good morning." I said with a small smile. She glanced at me with irritation, and looked down on the blanket on her lap. I received a frown, and she studied my face carefully, holding her aching head with her hand.

"Have you even slept properly?" Suzan asked in a soft voice, hesitantly standing up and wincing. I shook my head earnestly. "I can tell. You have bags under your eyes." I pouted, sitting up straight slowly, suppressing the urge to grab at my arm. My face betrayed my pain and the young woman rolled her eyes. "I'll get you some painkillers. Just rest for today, alright?"

"Get some for yourself too. You don't look too happy." I responded cheerfully, and Suzan glared at the floor, muttering something unintelligible as she trudged out the room. I sighed, and stared at my window. The sunlight falling into my room was almost colored red by the curtains that I'd closed earlier last night. I stared at a random dust particle which was illuminated by the light as I was sitting on the bed and not thinking about anything, really. My head was empty. I just gazed, and gazed, until my bladder told me I needed a visit to the toilet. I got up with a tired sigh, walking out of the comfort of my warm, cozy room and closed my bedroom door behind me. It was actually pretty early, and it didn't sound like anyone was up yet.

Eventually I found myself in the living room. I didn't even remember going to the toilet, but I'm pretty sure I went. Everything was kind of… blurry, and I was pretty sure my bandage needed replacing. But I didn't want to see the blood. Just the smell of it made me nauseous, let alone the sight. Blood was supposed to stay _inside _your body! Well, not all the time, but menstrual cycles and childbirths were an exception. I bit my lip. I really did not want to ask anyone and wake them up. Suzan was nowhere to be found. I suppose I would have to… to suck it up and do it myself. I cringed at the thought, but I didn't want to bother anyone just to change my bandage. _It's just blood,_ I told myself, _it's perfectly natural, there's nothing to be horrified of…._

I walked to the kitchen to get some bandage from the cupboard, then very reluctantly grabbed the bandage around my shoulder. I was wearing a sleeveless top so I didn't need to pull it off, luckily. I saw it had some red spots on it from the blood, and felt sick already. I vaguely remembered Suzan disinfecting it last night even while she'd been completely wasted. Alex had also proposed to do it, but Suzan had told her she could handle it. And she did. She wasn't the least bit disgusted by the blood, instead she was completely indifferent to it and treated my wound without making a sound. Those two were younger than me, but still stronger. It made me pity myself, and I hated it, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. It was just the way I was; weak, fragile, emotional….

Utterly frustrated by my own cowardice I made the foolish decision to rip the bandage off. Not only did that _hurt like hell and oh my god that burns why am I so stupid_, the mere sight of blood made me freeze and I started hyperventilating. This irrational fear welled up inside of me, and I didn't know what to do with it other than give in. I had a phobia for blood, primarily because of what had happened when I'd been younger. I didn't know the details, but at the age of four, my dad had walked in the house, half of his face covered in blood. I'd been absolutely terrified. Luckily he'd only gotten his forehead cut because of some weird accident with a razor, but nevertheless, ever since then I'd absolutely loathed seeing blood.

I felt my knees going weak and was sure I was going to faint when a hand was placed on top of my head and forcefully turned my head away. I couldn't see the blood anymore so I started to calm down again, taking deep, slow breaths. Kakuzu was eyeing me annoyed, and I was surprised seeing him in the kitchen this early.

"What were you doing?" he asked with a deep frown.

"I was… the… the bandage was dirty…." I stammered incoherently, and he rolled his eyes, grabbing the dirty bandage from my hands and throwing it in the bin.

"So you have a phobia for blood." I nodded. "You saw your bandage needed replacement." Nodded again. "Knowing you had a phobia for blood which makes you faint at the mere sight of it, and _also_ knowing your bandage and shoulder would be covered in blood, you decided to replace it yourself." I blinked. "Are you an imbecile?"

"Well, if… if you put it like that…. Uhm, well, I thought I could maybe, er, handle it?" My cheeks turned red in embarrassment as Kakuzu stared at me as if I had just grown a second head. Wordlessly, he grabbed some tissues, made them moist and wiped the blood off my shoulder. I cringed immediately, the wound stinging painfully, and a whine escaped my lips before I could stop myself. He eyed me with an irritated look.

"Don't be such a baby. You're even worse than Hidan."

"S-sorry." He threw the bloodied tissues away and grabbed the roll of clean bandage, starting to wrap it around my shoulder.

"Done. Next time don't be stupid and try to take a blow for someone else. Especially if that person wouldn't do the same for you." I frowned slightly at that, but realized it was probably true. I doubted Madara would jump in the way if Hecate had targeted me. At most he'd just shove me out of the way, but taking damage himself for some woman he barely knew? Not in a million years. So why had I done it for him? It wasn't like I'd ever been interested in his character, I'd never even really liked him. In fact, I _still _didn't like him. _I'm just way too emotional. If I'd… if I'd been stronger, like Lexy or Suze… why did I even bother? Why did I even care?_

_"Empathy is one of the things that makes us human. Don't let go of that."_Itachi's voice echoed through my head, like a warning. Of all the people to tell me something like that, it had to be him to say it_. _The good-natured murderer, giving me advice. I almost wanted to laugh. Almost. I would've, had it all not been so terribly tragic and depressing.

"Kakuzu?" I spoke meekly, when the man wanted to leave. He stopped and turned around to face me. "Thanks. You're a nice person when you want to be." I shot him a warm smile, and he stared at me a while longer. "I mean, you're like the grandfather I never had! Uhm… I-I-I mean… I meant that in a good way!" I shifted my weight nervously when he glared for a moment.

"Then that would make you the naïve brat of a granddaughter_ I_ never had." he responded sternly, and left the kitchen. I blinked, wondering if he'd just insulted me or just admitted he liked me as well. Either way, I decided it was the latter, and I couldn't wipe the goofy smirk off my face for the next few minutes. I knew that guy had a heart somewhere! Well… technically he had multiple hearts… but according to Suzan that had been over-compensation for the fact that he didn't have the figurative heart I was speaking of. Anyway, I decided maybe if I tried harder he'd open up to me. He had to have his own story as well, no?

"Good morning, Ella-chan!"

Oh god no. Not Tobi. Not Tobi _in the morning_! I gulped, glancing at the backdoor and wondering if I should make a run for it. Tobi, probably having noticed I was planning my escape, stood right in between me and the backdoor. "Good morning." I muttered softly, avoiding any sort of eye contact as that would really freak me out at this point. I sat down on a chair against the table, deciding that trying to get away was going to be pointless.

"Hmm? Aren't you going to throw knifes at me?" he said amused, folding his arms.

"Go away, prick."

"Ah, hearing that breaks my little black heart. Such a cruel rejection!" I glared at him to the best of my ability, and he chuckled.

"If you're here just to make me suffer, then you're wasting your time. I'll be suffering enough without your help." I huffed. He sat on the table, staring down at me. I still refused to look at him. I had never hated anyone as I hated this man right now. Because of him I'd nearly started the grieving process all over again. He'd made me have a nervous breakdown for heaven's sake, and he still refused to leave me alone. "Why don't you try and figure out a way to kill Hecate?" I said in an attempt to make him leave.

"Hmph. If I recall what Alex said correctly-"

"But you weren't there when she was talking about the Goddess." I commented puzzled, leaning back in my seat as that was a more comfortable position than leaning towards the table.

"Eavesdropping." he answered annoyed, not moving an inch, and continued his statement. "In any case, Alex said that only another God or Goddess would be able to kill a fellow deity."

"And?"

"_And_? Ella, did the Goddess kill off your brain cells and turn you into a mentally deficient child?" he derided, a little baffled at my question. "It's obvious. We need to get one of the other 'Greek' deities on our side."

"O-oh. Right." It seemed sleep deprivation didn't help my thought-process much. "But how? I mean there aren't exactly any summoning rituals for Greek deities."

"I'm still working on that."

"You have no idea how to do it, do you?"

"Tch, don't underestimate me, Ella." He walked over to the fridge and opened it, looking for something to eat.

"I'm not. I'm being realistic. There's no way, even for someone like you, to track down a _God_." He shot a glare in my direction. "Let alone even convince them to help us."

"Well then, oh ye of little faith, how do _you _propose we eliminate Hecate?"

"I-I wouldn't know."

"Exactly. So shut up."

* * *

><p><strong>Deidara<strong>

I woke up somewhat early that morning, and remembered to my delight that the asshole Jashinist had a hangover and was probably unable to get up from his bed. The guy was a prick, plain and simple. A possessive, overly jealous prick. I'll admit, the first time me and Suzan had a chat I remember thinking to myself, _This girl would be a good catch, _but it wasn't like **I **was interested. It was just an observation. She was intelligent, sociable, determined, looked pretty cute; a good catch. I myself didn't have time for love or girlfriends. Besides, there was no chemistry between us. No _boom._ Not even a little spark. The girl of my dreams had to make me feel like fireworks. I wouldn't be satisfied with anything less.

But my problem with the idiot was that he was such a reckless person, and I don't mean that in the sense you'd think I would. He's reckless with not only his actions, but also his words. True, he wasn't the smartest guy around, but he wasn't stupid either. His temperament simply got in the way of his rational thoughts most of the time. Anyway, I didn't want him to get anywhere near Suzan, and it's _not _because I'm supposedly 'jealous'. First of all, we're going to leave in a few weeks, so they'll get separated soon, which will no doubt lead to Hidan bitching and moaning constantly about it back in our world. Believe me, you did not want to see him depressed. Things, namely _my _things, got destroyed when he was upset.

Secondly, Suzan was a good friend of mine. It had been a while since I last had a friend like her. Sure, I'd found some sort of… mutual understanding with Sasori, but I couldn't openly laugh with him, talk with him, share stories and gossip about other people. Suzan was open to all of that, not to mention that she loved my explosions. Now Hidan, that prick, was a nosy, possessive person. Naturally, he shared some sort of similar bond (though I suspected it was more than just friendship he had in mind) and wanted to have all her attention and didn't want to share it with me. But he wasn't _deserving _of her attention. All the guy knew was his religion and killing people. What could he possibly offer her that I couldn't as a friend? Moreover, if he somehow managed to snare her in his trap, he'd hurt her eventually. Maybe he'd snap and injure her physically, maybe some reckless words would escape his foul mouth. Either way, I'd been despising the bond that had been growing between them since day one.

I had to tell Suzan about my worries, right? She deserved better, and I was her friend. I felt obligated to tell her Hidan was a complete asshole and she should stay away from him. Of course I wasn't completely selfless in this quest. I mean, I didn't like Hidan at all and I'd rather have him leaving us alone, namely leaving _me _alone, when I was talking to Suzan or hanging out with her. In any case, Hidan's annoying bond with Suzan wasn't the only thing that frustrated me.

That Uchiha was one of them. The shortest one. Actually, scratch that. All three of those stupid Uchiha were downright irritating. The youngest one, who had supposedly defeated me, well… it should be obvious why I hated his guts. God, I wanted him dead so bad I felt the tongues on my palm twitch whenever I saw the brat. Then you had Itachi. His behavior had obviously made some sort of drastic change. The usually blank expression on his face and cold Sharingan eyes had been replaced by eyes that were filled with weariness and stress. It was not what I was used to and it infuriated me. What the hell did he think he was doing, suddenly going weak like that? Was _that _pathetic excuse for a man the guy who'd beaten me effortlessly and convinced me to join the Akatsuki? Oh, and don't get me started on Madara _'I own the entire fucking world' _Uchiha. That guy was by FAR the most smug, condescending bastard I'd seen in a while. Walking in with an air as if the house was his property, as if he was expecting us to bow down to him; it angered me to the degree where I started gritting my teeth and wondering what his ridiculously long hair would look like while on fire.

Next to those assholes, there was also Tobi. Ugh, Tobi. I swear, the most annoying jerk I'd ever seen. This guy was the epitome of hyperactive stupidity. If he hadn't been my partner I would've permanently blown his ass to the moon and never looked back. But I wasn't a backstabbing dick so that was out of the question. Did fate hate me to such an extent where it thought putting me in a house with any of these jerks would be funny? Well then, fuck you, fate. Next time you interfere with my life I'm going to blow the living shit out of you.

"Good morning." While I'd been thinking about how fate was a complete bitch to me for no good reason, I hadn't seen Alex lying on the couch in the living room as I'd walked in. I smelled the scent of bacon and eggs, and assumed Ella was cooking. Kakuzu, the boring old guy, was sitting on Suzan's armchair and the TV was on, on that stupid cartoon again. I sat down on the other armchair, and grabbed the remote, switching to another channel. News. Watching news was a pain in the ass. I had no clue about at least half the things the people were talking about, and most of the time, neither one of the girls were willing to explain. Ella had kindly attempted, and she did explain some things about religion, the military and police forces here, but it didn't seem she was too knowledgeable about politics or technology.

Suzan seemed very knowledgeable about politics, as I often heard her cursing out some guys ("Fucking politicians!" she'd exclaimed once), frequently switching on the news channel and discussing it with Alex, but she refused explaining me the entire system of her country, saying it was too complicated and she was too lazy to bother. Alex had refused as well, but instead she'd actually given me a few books to read. After deciding I'd read them some other time, I'd put them away, only to find that the two oldest Uchiha and Hatake had snatched them away from me and had begun reading them. Damn thieves.

"Good morning." I huffed back at Alex when I'd found a comfortable position in the chair, and stared blankly at the news channel. Something about a guy named "Obama", whoever the hell that was. As I kept watching, I discovered he was the president of the country (which was called the United States of America by now, that much I knew). I assumed being president was the equivalent of being a Kage.

"That guy is the strongest guy you have?" I asked skeptically, eyeing the dark skinned man with a frown. He didn't look very strong.

"Dei, we don't have ninjas here." Alex lazily reminded me.

"Oh, right. So… this guy is the smartest?"

"I wouldn't say so."

"Then what qualifies him to be the president?"

"I don't know, actually. He has barely done jack shit for our country. But, well, he was the best option out of the other candidates."

"Hey, did you just call me Dei?" I frowned annoyed. Alex rolled her eyes, putting her two hands underneath her head.

"You're slow today." I didn't respond, instead looked back to the news channel. Apparently the States were in some kind of war with another country and some terrorists or something. Their technology was a lot more advanced than ours, and their systems a lot more complex, but other than that it seemed this world had even less ethics than ours. I mean really, all I heard from Suzan was how politicians were constantly being corrupted by money and bought by large companies, and how they started war over wealth and riches and whatnot. At least the assholes in _our _world had noble goals, even if the means to accomplish them were horrible. This world needed more ninjas.

"Breakfast is ready!" Ella's gentle voice rang through the living room, and I did feel like eating something. When I got to the kitchen, however, I saw Hidan sitting against the table, chatting with Suzan. Wait, where the hell was his hangover? He should've been in pain by now, lying in his bed! I frowned disappointedly, promptly sitting down across from them. Neither of them even looked up. I suspected Hidan was ignoring me and Suzan hadn't realized I was here.

"No, I really don't remember _anything._ All I know is that my head hurts like a bitch right now." Suzan spoke, and I thanked Ella when she put some food on my plate. I ignored Tobi barging in from the backyard and continued listening to their conversation.

"Seriously? Not a thing?" Hidan seemed a little disappointed. Suzan shook her head.

"Nope. Why? Did something important happen?" There was a silence (except from Tobi blabbering at me but I was still ignoring him) before Hidan responded a little reluctantly.

"We danced a little." he stated, scratching the back of his neck.

"Oh. Was it fun?"

"Uh, yeah. It was great." he muttered awkwardly. I put my elbow on the table and leaned my head on the back of my hand as I enjoyed the completely uncomfortable silence between the two of them. Then I coughed. Suzan blinked, looking up to me in slight surprise.

"Hey, good morning. Didn't see you coming in." she said with a small smile. I first returned the glare Hidan was giving me by now and focused on Suze.

"So you got a hangover, yeah?" She grimaced and I smirked. "Heh."

"Not funny."

"Your own damn fault for getting yourself wasted." I said, following it up with a bite out of my bacon. It was surprisingly tasty, and I decided I would find some way to recreate it so I could make it at home. I glanced at Ella's injury. It didn't seem to hinder her too much while she was cooking.

"Wow, aren't you such a sympathetic person!" Suzan said sarcastically, sipping her tea. I chuckled.

"Yep, I'm the nicest guy you'll find around here, and that's why you love me."

"Bitch, please. Kakashi and Gaara are way nicer." I pouted, glowering at her.

"Are not."

"Are too."

"You're such a b- ow!" I hissed when she kicked me under the table. I scowled as she giggled at her own deviousness (if you could even call it that), and swiftly kicked her back, though not very hard, of course. She stopped giggling, frowning back at me now, and before we knew it we were having an epic foot battle under the table.

"What the hell are you doing?" Hidan snorted, glancing under the table. "Fucking seriously?"

"Oh piss off, yeah, we're having fun." I snapped. A few other guys came walking in but I was too busy glaring at Hidan to notice.

"Sure you are." he said irately, obviously still under the impression I wanted to completely snatch Suzan away from him. He really thought I saw her as more than a friend, didn't he? Stupid prick.

"What the hell is up with you?"

"Nothing, you're the one acting like a brat."

"Tch. I think we both know what this is about, yeah?"

"Enlighten me, blondie, 'cause I sure as hell don't know." Our words cut through the air like a razor sharp blades as we glared intensely at each other, the tension between us filling up the air. He _had _to be playing dumb. No way he didn't know what this was about.

"Liar. You're a goddamn liar, yeah. A liar and a coward."

"What the fuck did you just call me?" he snapped, getting up so abruptly he knocked over his chair.

"You heard me," I growled, not intimidated in the least "you're a liar and a co-" Suddenly I was hoisted out of my seat by his hand, which had roughly grabbed my shirt and jerked at it. My hands were on the table, and I was leaning over it as Hidan's purple eyes menacingly glared into my exposed eye, with such ferociousness I was sure he was going to punch me in the face. I reached for the clay in the pouch I was carrying with me at all times, but didn't do anything rash yet.

"Repeat that. I fucking dare you, asshole, repeat that."

"Hidan!" Ella exclaimed a little panicked, also standing up by now. Her words fell on deaf ears. Suzan just watched calmly, assessing the situation. I could see her ever so observant eyes trying to analyze and predict Hidan's next move, and it seemed for now she decided to stay out of it. The others in the room, namely Kakuzu and Itachi, had decided a similar approach. Tobi was, for once, silent. Alex, Gaara and Sasuke were also quiet, watching. The former two were obviously tense and on guard, the latter didn't seem to care at all.

"Gladly, yeah. But, I'm not joking about it." I hissed at him, grabbing his wrist with one hand. "Be a man and come clean, yeah. It's so damn obvious. Tell her, or you'll just stay a _coward_, and you'll never deserve her." Now I was just waiting for him to punch me. I'd basically declared his little 'secret' crush on Suzan. His furious expression had turned into a blank one. It was a most peculiar sight and I was amazed by it for less than a second, before I saw his fist raise and hearing Ella yell in the background, and the kitchen door opened at the same time. Hidan froze for a second, and so did I.

Madara stared at the two of us for a moment, then scowled in irritation. "Knock it off and sit down. I won't repeat myself." For once, both of us were glaring at a common enemy (apparently Hidan despised the guy as much as I did) and both of us felt like challenging him. But I wasn't an idiot. I knew damn well what Madara Uchiha was capable of, and after Kakuzu had, albeit not so civilly, informed Hidan who he was as well, I doubted that even he would go against him. He shoved me back into my seat, but to show his defiance anyway, he left the room instead of sitting down, waltzing out of the kitchen and slamming the door shut behind him.

_So damn stubborn._

* * *

><p><strong>Kakashi<strong>

Well, after that little outburst I think even someone as socially inept as Sai could recognize what was going on. As such, Suzan's cheeks turned crimson, an astonishing color which I had never expected to see on her face, as she gaped at Deidara. Her mouth was open like that of a fish as she stared at him, her eyes nearly falling out of its sockets. I thought it was highly amusing, but also somewhat concerning. If she attracted psychopaths like that, her love life didn't look too bright in the future. My eye wandered off to Ella, who was staring at Suzan with a concerned, motherly look on her face. She didn't seem too bothered by her injury, which somewhat relieved me. I'd been worrying how she'd deal with it, but it didn't seem to be much of an obstacle. Of course, if it had been up to me I would've let Madara get hit, because he could've handled it a lot better than Ella, who'd flinch every time she strained her right arm.

Unfortunately, Ella had instinctively reacted according to her selfless nature as a person, knowing he'd never do the same thing for her. It concerned me and amazed me at the same time. She knew well what kind of person Madara was, yet she still had been willing to sacrifice herself in an instant, without hesitation. It was admirable, but with all of these ruthless killers around I couldn't see her gentleness and innocence lasting for long. One of them had nearly broken her already, but I was determined not to let it happen again. I felt very compelled to protect her, so she could keep smiling warmly and retain that cheerful outlook on life and loving personality. I didn't want her to change, ever. She was perfect.

Wait, _back up._ Where the hell were my thoughts going with this?

"Suze?" Ella asked hesitantly, waking me up from my trance-like state. Suzan seemed almost hypnotized, as the crimson color faded out of her face. Actually,_ all_ color faded away. Then she suddenly stood up and walked like a zombie to the living room. It seemed it came as somewhat of a shock to her. After all, Hidan wasn't the most… well, normal guy around, to put it lightly.

"So does Deidara-senpai have a crush on Suzan-chan and is that why senpai and Hidan-san are fighting?"

"THERE IS NO LOVE TRIANGLE!" Deidara suddenly screamed, exploding so abruptly Tobi fell out of his chair. I supposed he'd been holding that scream back for a while now. He coughed, glaring at the food on his plate. Tobi then started whining at him for scaring him like that (though I highly doubt he'd even been slightly startled). Eventually Deidara got up and left to the backyard, grumpily.

"So how's your arm?" Alex asked Ella.

"Fine. Much better than yesterday, thanks to some painkillers. Still stings, though… but it's nothing to worry about!" she replied with an honest smile, getting up and putting some dirty plates away a few others had left behind after they'd quickly eaten there food. So far Hidan, Sasuke, Deidara, Suzan and Kakuzu had all left by now. I was sitting at the table, but not eating anything yet as it would be difficult to hide my face with Madara sitting across from me. Alex had attempted to find out what was under my mask a few times earlier, but every time she had failed and she'd given up eventually.

"So… does anyone know how we're going to deal with this problem?" said blonde asked, putting her fork on her plate as she too was finished with breakfast. There was a silence all around the table for a moment.

"Tobi said he had an idea." Ella said slowly, glancing at the masked man, unsurely.

"A near impossible one, but an idea nonetheless." he responded nonchalantly, leaning back in his chair. Everyone in this room knew about his true personality, so he'd decided not to hide it from us as he spoke in his normal voice. "We need to find us some godly allies."

"Allies. Godly allies." I repeated, frowning. "And how are we supposed to find them?"

"That part is the tricky part. Apparently there are no summoning rituals so contacting one will be… difficult."

"That's a big understatement."

"Forget about it, it would be a complete waste of time." Madara cut in the conversation, and effectively started a discussion between him and Tobi. "We take her out with what we have."

"She can't be killed."

"But she _can _be weakened and injured. We just need to incapacitate her as quickly as possible."

"How do you propose we do that? I say it's best if we bide our time."

"And I say we track her down and defeat her _now_. I don't have the time to sit around and discuss strategy."

"Patience is a virtue."

"Not when you leave your clan behind without a leader in a village that will probably betray them."

"We have no idea what her weaknesses are. Rushing into battle is foolish, kid." I'd been watching the entire time, and it didn't seem like the two were on very friendly terms, but not on very bad terms either. It was a fact they knew each other from somewhere before, which meant Tobi wasn't who he told us he was. He had to be someone else. But _how _did he know Madara? Was he immortal? Was Madara involved in that crazy Eye of the Moon Plan he'd revealed? I sighed, deciding that trying to analyze the situation with barely any information was pointless, and instead tried to break up the discussion.

"There's always that one wish we have."

"We can't use it against her." Madara scoffed, scowling at me. "Nor am I about to run away like a coward." I rolled my eyes, already having realized that his ego was too big to permit him to use the wish to get us out of here already. Besides, I do admit, even though this wasn't my world, letting that crazy Goddess with obvious personal issues roam around and kill people because she was bitter about her ruined reputation wasn't very honorable at all. I felt obligated to take her out.

"You missed my point. I meant that we could just _wish _for an ally." I folded my arms, glancing at the both of them. They seemed a little annoyed, probably because they hadn't thought of the idea first. "Of course, that would mean destroying the only way we have to get back home. That might come back to bite us in the ass later."

"I'd rather you saved that wish." Alex immediately stated. "It's too risky to waste it on some deity, from whom we don't even know if he or she would want to help us."

"Who do you think would most likely support us?" Gaara asked her, and Alex contemplated it for a while.

"I'd say… Hades."

"Hades?"

"God of the Underworld. There was this whole drama where he kidnapped another Goddess and Hecate ratted him out for it, so I think he would kind of dislike her by now. Actually, I think the guy dislikes almost everyone except his wife. Of course, he's the God of the Underworld, so… he'll either ask something in return or maybe even betray us later for his own benefit." Hm. That guy didn't sound too reliable, but apparently was the only option we had.

"Let's not make rash decisions. We have time to think it over, and we could discuss it later with the rest." I advised carefully, and though both Tobi and Madara sent a glare my way, they seemed to accept it begrudgingly. _Such nice guys, _I thought sarcastically, getting annoyed with the obvious tension and conflict. I glanced over at Itachi. He'd been silent the entire time. In fact, he hadn't spoken a word ever since he'd entered the room. For a moment, when I saw him frowning, I wondered if he was having a hangover. But then he looked at Ella, and I knew what he was thinking about. Naturally, when Ella decided to go upstairs, and stood up, walking out the kitchen, he stood up after a few seconds as well and followed her.

I couldn't really stay behind, could I?

I waited for a few moments, before I also got out of my seat and walked out the kitchen. I spotted Ella and Itachi walking up the stairs. I ignored everyone else in the living room as I made my way towards the stairs, and silently got up a few steps, until I heard them talking. I made it myself comfortable and sat down on a step, as I was just out of their sight but close enough to eavesdrop.

"...need to talk."

"Talk? About what?" I heard Ella ask quietly.

"About what you said, earlier." I raised my eyebrows. They'd had a private conversation with each other, then? Somehow, this didn't sit right with me.

"Oh. Is there something you want to say to me, then?"

"…." When Itachi stayed silent, Ella let out an exasperated sigh. She seemed truly frustrated with him at this point. I wondered if she'd had enough of his bullshit, and had called him out on it earlier. It would explain Itachi's odd behavior. Especially the drinking. Someone only drunk like that when they had something on their mind.

"If you're going to bring this up and then stay silent, you shouldn't have bothered, Itachi." I heard the sound of two footsteps, but then a momentary silence. "Let go, please." I assumed he'd grabbed a hold of her by now, as she'd wanted to walk away. I felt _very _compelled to peek and see what he was doing, but I couldn't risk getting caught.

"You were right. You were absolutely right, about everything." I noted that his voice was surprisingly soft and honest. "I was… I _am_ a coward. I should have carried the burden of my responsibility, but instead I… I only made everything much worse. I guided him towards the darkness. It's something I should've foreseen, but I was naïve. I was hopeful. I thought maybe there was a chance he'd see the light on his own, but I was wrong. I was wrong, and you were right." He was talking about Sasuke. "I've known it all along, I knew I should've tried to make it right, but until you gave me that wake-up call, I was comfortable with running away." This was a completely astonishing admission on his part. I hadn't expected him to… have this heart-to-heart with anyone. _Ella must be really something to get him to say all of this,_ I thought, a strange sense of irritation welling up inside of me. I was annoyed with the two of them. No, wait, that wasn't it. Rather, it was the two of them _together _that made my eye twitch in aggravation.

"Itachi, I… you… you don't have to be so hard on yourself." Ella muttered. "I-I mean, I can't deny anything what you said but… but you don't have to beat yourself up over it. What's done is done." She was trying to comfort him. Twitch.

"That's not all." he responded in a more serious tone now. "I must apologize to you as well."

"A-a-apologize? Don't be silly, you didn't do anything wrong!"

"I did, actually. I was very cold to you earlier, when you offered me your friendship. You didn't deserve that, at all. At least the very least I should've explained the reason why…."

"Why what? Why you were rude to me? You know, I still am wondering about that." Ella's voice was lighthearted. She didn't seem to hold any grudges against him. I did, but that was beside the point. Maybe 'grudge' was too big of a word, but I still held him accountable for being a prick.

"I tried distancing myself from you, because I felt… this may sound cruel, but I actually felt like it wouldn't be worth it, at first. I didn't think _you _were worth it." There was a tense silence and I felt my hands strangely itching as my scowl deepened and my irritation grew. "I apologize for that, Ella. You're more than worth my time, but I was-"

"It's okay!" _No it's not, _I thought crossly, folding my arms and leaning back a little. "I understand. I just wish you'd told me this before. But… but I get it. I'm just some girl, anyway. I'm not strong, or very smart, or have any sort of significant talents, so…."

"Ella, don't be ridiculous." I imagined Itachi frowning by now. "I don't care about your strength, or how intelligent you are, or what you can or can't do. You're kind, compassionate, gentle, and I should've known better than to display such rudeness towards you."

"I… u-uhm…." She was stuttering. Stuttering! What did that mean? Was she embarrassed? No, more likely completely flattered and probably blushing right about now. Twitch. If this kept going on I was going to have some sort of seizure due to the sheer amount of annoyance stacked inside me at the moment.

"I'm afraid I might have forgotten what it's like to have a friend. After all those years…." Itachi mused contemplatively, never finishing his sentence, and Ella still wasn't making a sound for almost half a minute when she finally stammered a clumsy response.

"It's uh… I'd… we could… so we could still be friends? At least until… until you leave."

"I'd like that." The serene silence was getting on my nerves, and so, instinctively, I stood up and walked up the stairs, pretending I'd just arrived. I spotted the two of them standing face to face, closer to each other than was comfortable with me. I'd seen them both smiling for a split-second before they had turned their heads towards me. It had been very strange seeing Itachi smiling, though it had been a small smile, but it had disappeared in an instant when I'd entered the picture.

"Yo. Did I interrupt something?" I asked casually, though Itachi probably noticed the suspicious undertone in my voice because his eyes slightly narrowed, as if to try and figure out the purpose of my presence.

"No, not at all. I was about to leave." he said coolly, glancing at Ella, who seemed to be beaming. I could swear I saw the corners of his mouth curve upward a little when he saw her happy expression, and he walked past me. He gave me a cold look but didn't say anything as he walked off the stairs. I tried not to glare (and failed) as I watched him leave to the living room, then turned my attention to Ella.

"If you looked any happier you'd outshine the sun with that smile." I stated matter-of-factly, and a pink blush appeared on her face, but she didn't seem taken aback by it. I hadn't meant it flirtingly, and for a moment_ I_ was taken aback from how romantic that had sounded. I hadn't intended it to, it had just… slipped? What was wrong with me lately? First the irrational irritation, now the blurting out of romantic lines for no reason. Why was I bothered by it in the first place, though? It wasn't like I hadn't flirted with her before. But this felt very, _very _different from those other times. Suddenly flirting with her just for fun, didn't seem very compelling anymore.

"You're really sweet when you try to be, you know that?" she remarked cheerfully.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well… when we first met, you were kind of a sarcastic… uh… prick. No offense."

"None taken. That was only because I was frustrated at the time. Being stuck in a house with S-ranked missing-nin isn't exactly a happy experience." Ella leaned against the wall, pondering something for a moment before she spoke to me again.

"I'm actually… kind of glad I got to meet you. I mean out of all the people that could've fallen down that portal, I'm glad it was you." There was no flirtatious undertone to it at all. It was completely genuine and serious, yet still I was a little baffled hearing that. I don't know why, but I kind of just stood there and stared at her. Then she must've realized how that had sounded, because she blinked as well, surprised, and the pink blush turned red. "I didn't mean it like _that. _I think."

"You… _think_? What does that mean?" Ella turned serious again. If I hadn't seen Ella do it, I'd think that being serious with a red blush on your face was utterly impossible. But there she was, staring at me as if this was the most serious of all serious situations ever in the history of mankind while blushing like a school girl.

"I'm saying that if you're not careful, I might start getting a crush on you." I gaped at her bluntness. "What?"

"That's… that's a rather impetuous thing to say, isn't it?"

"But I'm completely serious here. I figure, there's no point in hiding any feelings for anyone. It just makes life complicated. So you should know that I really like you, you know? I might even fall in love with you if you play your cards right." She shrugged nonchalantly, as if we were talking about the weather.

But she was honest.

Painfully honest.

And my head was spinning.

* * *

><p><strong>So, I wasn't supposed to end this here originally. I'd actually written a part of SuzanHidan dialogue, but… it was incomplete and I really wanted to post this today. Well, this turned out to be quite the… romantic chapter, huh? Didn't intend for it, but oh well. **

**ANYWAY, sorry for the delay, but you see, Mass Effect 3 came out last week and I've been… kind of occupied with that, and was also studying for a huge exam that took place yesterday, so yeah xD**

**So uh, next chapter, we'll see the Suzan/Hidan situation get resolved (sort of maybe not really probably who knows?), Kakuzu gets way more screen time (lol) and some other stuff. **

**In any case, after I took the poll and looked at all the reviews, I think I'll go for a sequel. I have NO idea what the title will be, but I have a basic idea for a plot and I believe I can make it work. I can already tell you two new OCs will be introduced in the sequel. And that's all the info you'll get for now. **

**So that's that. Thanks for your input, guys! :D**

**BIG THANKS TO … EVERYONE WHO REVIEWED. Would you guys be terribly offended if I left out names this time? I mean, over thirty people reviewed, and I'm so tired… I just wanna go to sleep. I'll include you guys next time, I promise, but now I'm kind of exhausted. I'm so exhausted I can't even be bothered to check for any typos D:**

**Bye! Hope you enjoyed! ^_^ **


	24. Decisions, decisions

**Bioware.**

**I FUCKING HATE YOU! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!**

**I'm kidding. I don't really hate you for messing up my Mass Effect 3 game ending. I'm still annoyed. But yeah. **

**LOTS OF SPECULATION FROM EVERYONE! Amiright, Bioware? You sons of b… UGH. Let's not go there. You assholes are lucky **_**only**_** the ending was completely fucked up. If the rest of the game hadn't been as great as it was, I would've boycotted your entire goddamn label.**

**LOL, sorry to the non-Mass Effect 3 fans. I just had to rant about my game… and Bioware… Grrr, Bioware…. AARGH! I'm so frustrated D:**

**Anyway, this may be my longest chapter yet. Eh, mainly seeing the Suzan/Hidan situation. Also... stuff. Oh, and PLOT DEVELOPMENT! :O**

**Enjoy!**

**"Cloud, why are you pretending like you haven't been absent for almost a month now?" O_o  
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**Me, absent? Don't be silly, reader, I'm the fastest fanfiction updater on the net! :D  
><strong>

**"Cloud, we're not stupid." ._.  
><strong>

**JUST ENJOY THE GODDAMN STORY! **

**"...Wow. _Somebody_ is on her period."**

***cough* Like I said, enjoy -_-"  
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* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

I'd known all along. Wouldn't be much of a good psychology student if I hadn't, after all. In fact, I'd been trying to ignore it, hoping it would just go away on its own. Looking back, it had been naïve of me to expect the problem to disappear by itself. Well, 'problem'? Maybe that wasn't the correct way to describe it. Or maybe it was. It depended on which part of me you asked. _Look at that man, _my conscience told me. _Look at all he's done. Look at the blood on his hands. Can you love him? _it would ask me time and time again. I never had an answer. I still don't have a definitive answer. Can I? Yes. Will I? Maybe. Is it morally sound? No, generally loving a serial killer was considered to be a bad thing and frowned upon, to put it lightly. He was a murderer. He had no empathy for his victims, he deserved to go to be punished for his crimes, not receive love for it. But my heart always so diligently argued against my mind. _I've never seen him kill innocent people, _I would argue to myself. _What's the problem? He only kills those who threaten him. Is that so wrong? It's the biggest rule in nature; kill or be killed. He came from a different world, you can't expect him to suddenly adapt to ours. _

_Death is all he's ever known. _

_Was _it wrong? By society's standards, I suppose it was. But "wrong" and "right" were subjective. There was no ultimate law of what was good and evil dictated for us humans. Well, unless you believed in the Bible or other holy book, like Ella. But I didn't need some stupid book to dictate my morals and principles and how I should live or think or act. I shouldn't be trying to conform to society's standards just so I could fit in. I was too independent, and too stubborn. Actually, I'd never gone that route before. Why should I now? Why should Icare? Why couldn't I be selfish and decide that,_ I don't care about the people he killed, I'm in love with this man and I'm not about to deny my own feelings just because society says it's wrong_. May sound harsh, may sound cruel, but that's how it was. Oh, so he killed and sacrificed your brother to his God? Sucks to be you. Okay, now that _does _sound horrible. But it's not like I could tell my heart to stop loving. Fighting it would just make me more miserable.

What a moronic thing that would be; to try to stop loving. I loathed anyone who denied their feelings or true self just because some sanctimonious douchebags waved their "holy" book around and screamed "MY MAGIC BOOK SAYS THAT'S BAD!" or because some self-righteous assholes said "THAT GOES AGAINST MORALITY!" Whose morality? Who decided _your _morality was automatically mine? I did hate people who gave into peer pressure. I did hate people who stopped chasing their dreams or changed their opinion just because some prick said it went against the majority. I did hate people who followed the crowd like blind sheep and denied their true self. Then why would I _ever _become one of those people? I wouldn't. I shouldn't. I decided denying my feelings went against my own principles, and I was going to stop pretending they didn't exist before I turned into the cowards I loathed.

Actually, now I thought about… about the option of pursuing this… this fucked-up-in-so-many-ways-_relationship_, his religion might become a problem. I didn't know anything about it, but if it was as prude and conservative as Christianity or Islam then we were going to have some issues. Also, shit was going to turn ugly if he expected me to go around killing and sacrificing people, _if _we got together. I wasn't about to convert for anyone. _Anyone._ I am an atheist… well, **used **to be (Hecate happily ruined that fucking concept for me), and I had refused to buy any of the crap religion tried to feed me in the past, so why should I start now? Just for some man who was going to leave later and never see me again? Fat chance.

Still, and _still, _while my mind decided that I would stand my ground and face my feelings and come to terms with them, my body had an entirely different reaction. It was frustrating to say the least. The initial shock hadn't retreated and was still evident from the lack of color in my face and my expression, no doubt. I moved without thinking, standing up from my seat and walking after him as he ran away from me, from his own feelings, from himself.

He marched through the living room, up the stairs and I already knew he was probably headed for the roof. I called his name but he didn't respond. I followed him as he eventually climbed up the ladder, but he didn't close the hatch behind him like I'd expected. I waited for a few seconds, wondering if going after him was really a good idea. _Here goes nothing…._ I sighed, climbing up the ladder anyway, only to find him lying down on his back, his hands beneath his head as he stared up at the sky with a deep scowl on his face. He didn't even glance at me once as I stood next to him, staring down.

"Hey." I said after an awkward moment of silence. He didn't respond. I hesitantly lied down next to him, wondering what he was staring at. It was a little cloudy, with not much sunshine today. I stared up at the clouds, wondering how to approach this situation the best. Any subtle questions wouldn't be quickly rejected by Hidan, as he was a very direct person. However, also rather… unpredictable. Asking him directly might set him off. But what other option did I have? Staying like this wasn't comfortable at all. There was a constant tension between us, even when we were having fun. _Fuck it._

"You can't run forever."

He stayed silent.

"I'm serious. We both know this… denial isn't working, okay?"

"It might be better than the alternative." he eventually muttered, finally speaking.

"Which is?"

"…Just listen for one fucking second, alright? I'm leaving hella soon, so we might not want to make this, uh, you know, COMPLICATED? Not to mention that you're a damn heathen, I'll have to wipe out an entire village to make it up to Jashin-sama for fuck's sake, and you don't like it when I kill people, do you?"

"But I can't pretend like we're just friends either!" I spat, getting just as frustrated as he was. "It's cowardly and I don't like it, who cares if you're going to leave, might as well enjoy the time we have left, right? Besides, what the hell does Jashin care who you lo…." I stopped myself, feeling like I was being a little too brash. I didn't want to get ahead of myself.

I turned my head over to look at him, and realized he'd been looking at me the entire time. Feeling a little shy, I quickly looked back up at the clouds.

"I suppose he wouldn't really care, as long as I give him _some _sacrifice."

"Wait, Hidan, how long has it been since you last… you know?" I asked, realizing something very, very important.

"Over a month. Last time were those guards in that supermarket."

"So…."

"So, Jashin-sama is fucking pissed, and once I get back to my world I'm going to have to kill at least twenty heathens as soon as possible. Oh, and a shitload of rituals and praying. Man, that's gonna be such a _pain_!" he cried childishly, obviously not realizing this was human lives he was talking about. It was numbers to him. Death was all he ever knew, but in the most ignorant way possible. Of course, when you're immortal, you tend to underrate death somewhat. "But hey, don't get me wrong, I know… I know I'm in love with you. Fuck, that sounded so cliché."

"…What?" I sat up straight, gazing down at him, completely shocked at his sudden statement. He was back staring up at the clouds again, frowning deeply, as if he was conflicted about something. He glanced at me, and sighed, annoyed.

"Are you deaf? I _know _I'm in-fucking-_love_ with you. That's not the real problem. Well, at first it was, but I've gotten over it by now." He sat up as well, glaring at me, as if this was somehow my fault. I folded my arms, expecting some sort of explanation. I was rather irritated by myself as well. Apparently I'd completely missed the change in his behavior which indicated acceptance. Ah, well, it's not an easy thing to spot anyway. Though, now I thought back, he'd seemed a lot more… relaxed around me now than he used to. Maybe dancing that one time had helped break the ice?

"What _is _the problem, then, if it isn't that I'm a heathen and you leaving? The real one?" I asked when he still hadn't given me an explanation after a whole minute of tense silence, and I was getting sick of pondering. Hidan scratched the back of his head, seeming to be a little confused.

"I've never been in love before." Oh. _OH! _I felt like slapping myself for missing the most obvious observation of all times. A guy like him… I doubted he had much experience with being in love. Of course this would come as rather awkward and confusing to him. "How the hell are you… you know, supposed to act?" I shrugged awkwardly. It wasn't like I'd had fairytale romances either. Hell, with my first boyfriend it had been all about the sex. You know, the bad boy type every girl ever falls for at least once in her life? I eventually realized he was a jackass and broke up though. My second one had been the most boring guy on earth. Gorgeous, easily Calvin Klein-model material, but he had the personality of a cardboard box. With him, well, it was just that time in my teenage life where any pretty boy able to form even half a coherent sentence was good enough to seduce me. Then there were some other guys who aren't nearly important enough to describe whom I kinda, sort of dated for like a few weeks, but those never went anywhere.

But now I summarized the guys I dated and had sex with, thinking about how NONE of those guys had even made me truly happy, thinking about how I'd never actually _deeply_ fallen in love before, a sudden, cold realization hit me.

…_Oh my god._

_My love life SUCKS BALLS! Of all the people to be my big first love, it's a deranged, immortal, religiously zealous murderer who isn't even from my OWN world? What is WRONG with me? SERIOUSLY. Maybe I'm not cut out to be a psychologist. _

"Just… uhm, follow your instinct." I eventually mumbled awkwardly, painfully aware that I should be the last person to give anyone any sort of advice on love.

"If I did _that_ you'd be screaming 'RAPE!' within the first ten seconds." he stated bluntly. I turned a bright shade of red, looking away as I pretended my sweater was the most fascinating thing in the world while I fiddled with it. Had I been any more prude I would've gotten a nosebleed from the several mental images flooding my brain right now.

"Oh…." I muttered pathetically, and slowly pulled myself together. I still wasn't very comfortable with... well, I mean, talking about sex. Joking about it was fine, but if it was a serious conversation? I sighed. "Well, in any case, you need to find a balance between your own needs and the needs of the other person if you… want it to work." _Hah. Now if I only listened to my own goddamn advice…._

"That sounds… logical. But, hey-" he then said, looking somewhat angry "-I've freaking confessed to you now and everything, and you still haven't said a damn word. So what's your response?"

"U-uhm, I, I…. hadn't… give me a minute…."

"Or do you… love that she-male? Is that it?"

"NO!" I immediately yelped, shaking my head fervently. "No, absolutely not! I don't know where you got the ridiculous idea that Deidara… and me… together? Hell no! He's like… my bro. Nothing more than that." He was a nice guy, and yeah, I liked his explosions and he was fun to talk to, but on a romantic level? No attraction, _none_. I think it was his long hair that put me off at first, but maybe, after a while, it was also that we'd be better friends than lovers. I guess I just friendzoned him instantly after I met him. Which was ridiculous, considering he was a way healthier option than mister I-sacrifice-you sitting next to me. Hidan was smirking contently at having heard my explanation. Maybe now he'd stop acting like a prick towards Deidara.

"Sooo…."

"So. I…." I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself, which failed in epic proportions. I was really nervous right now and Hidan staring right at me, expectantly, wasn't helping either. I'd been bottling it up for a while now, and I wanted to get it out as well, but it was just… I don't know. It was difficult. These things weren't supposed to be forced like this. It felt unnatural and awkward and embarrassing. But if I didn't do it now he'd get pissed and I'd be in deep shit. "I'm… I… imilovwiyou…."

"What?"

"I-I said…. I'minlovewithyou."

"Slow the hell down, I can't understand what you're saying!" Hidan complained, dissatisfied with my half-assed confession, which only put me under more stress as his face had inched closer to mine, his eyes staring into mine as well.

"I'm… I'm in love with you!" I burst out screaming right into his face, which startled him so much he backed away so fast you'd think I'd electrocuted him or something. Truth be told, this was my first confession _ever._ I'd never really confessed to my other boyfriends or crushes. I'd just mumbled a pathetic _"I like you,"_ and that had been enough, usually. This was… completely different. I'd fallen for him, hard. I'd fallen like a rock that had been dropped down out of a freaking airplane. Yeah! I dare you to top that ridiculous analogy, bitches!

"Hey! Lovebirds! Keep it down!" I heard Alex yelling, slightly amused, from the backyard.

"If you're gonna do it, do it in your room or something!" Deidara chimed in, obviously irritated. I wondered if I should throw my phone at him because that really embarrassed me.

"Suze? You do have a cond-"

"SHUT UP, ELLA!"

"Just… just trying to be helpful…." I buried my face into my hands, wondering if somehow Hecate was involved with this obviously evil scheme of making me miserable. Had to be. Yep, everything was her fault. Me being embarrassed was her fault, me stubbing my toe this morning was her fault, my phobia for spiders was her fault, hell, whenever anything remotely negative happens, blame it on Hecate. And no, I'm not being ridiculously unreasonable! If you're gonna create a tsunami of DOOM and kill people just because you were bitter about your reputation you deserve to get all the evil on the goddamn world blamed on you. Damn right. Hiroshima was her fault, Pearl Harbor was her fault, 9/11 was her fault, the Holocaust was her fault… okay, fine. Maybe not those horrible events. But she was still a bitch.

"So… what happens now?" Hidan asked me, a wide grin on his face, probably enjoying my humiliation. Well, okay, it wasn't humiliating, but it was still… really weird to me. I shot him a glance and shrugged.

"I don't know. I guess this is the part where we're totally supposed to make out."

"Oh." There was an awkward silence for a moment. Or at least, awkward on my part. When I glanced over at Hidan, I saw he was just staring blankly at me, but then he broke out into a wide, amused grin. "Awesome!" He grabbed my arm and pulled me towards him. I shrieked and squirmed when he wrapped his arms around me, way too eager to my liking.

"H-hey!" I sputtered, not happy with him being so direct. His face was inches away from mine and I was blushing like crazy.

"What?" he said with a frown, and I felt his breath on my lips, which I was keeping tightly shut, mind you. "_You _said we're supposed to be making out," he said with a frown, unhappy with my resistance to something that was going to happen sooner or later. It's not like I didn't want to, I just wasn't comfortable enough yet. I was someone who liked taking these sort of things slow. Unfortunately the same could not be said for Hidan.

"No, I did not!" I snapped, trying to create some distance. "First of all, I only said that because it's the standard, I didn't mean that we sh-" He put his hand on my mouth, successfully stopping me from going on a rant and derailing the situation. Damn. Not as stupid as he looks. He kept on scowling for a while. When he figured I wouldn't go on a tirade he lowered his hand again.

"Are we going to kiss or not?" he asked bluntly. I scratched the back of my head, a little unsure.

"You uhm, need me ease me into it."

"I need to _what_?" Hidan stared at me as if I'd just tried explaining quantum mechanics to him, cocking his head to the side, puzzled. Embarrassed, I looked away, and his arms (which had been around my waist) lowered for a moment.

"To make me feel comfortable." I rephrased myself, and he just gaped at me. I was expecting some sort of oafish remark or him complaining or something of the sort. Instead, he put his arms around me again. But the touch felt a lot softer, this time. Not rough and eager like the first time. _Oh my god, _I realized when he gently pushed my head on his chest, _he's _hugging_ me! _And somehow I got more turned on my this than any sort of kissing that would've taken place had Hidan gotten his way. My heart was racing against his chest, but after a few seconds I was completely comfortable and felt like I belonged. I felt blissful.

Then I looked up at his face, and saw he was glaring at me with an impatient look in his eyes.

"Can we have kinky sex _now_?"

"Hidan, seriously!"

"Ugh. Women."

* * *

><p><strong>Kakuzu<strong>

I was watching the blond girl typing something on her device as I was sitting on the couch in the living room. The thing she was occupying herself with was called a laptop. The reason why I was interested in it at the moment is because it was displaying something that seemed to greatly displease her, considering she was glowering at her screen. There was nothing else of interest in the room and I didn't want to read another book, as I'd already read the most relevant ones by now. Next to me Deidara was glaring at the Uchiha brat who was sitting on an armchair, the blond probably plotting the many different ways he could try to kill him. Not like I cared.

"Oh, man…." Alex sighed, leaning back into her seat with a deep frown.

"You've been staring at that thing for a while now, yeah. Whatcha looking at?" Deidara asked curiously, interrupting his glaring at the Uchiha brat to stare at the laptop.

"It's… nothing important." she lied through her teeth. Deidara grinned.

"Come on, what are you hiding, yeah?" Alex glanced at Sasuke, but he didn't seem interested in the least, nor was he paying attention to our conversation. Instead he was reading a magazine he seemed fascinated by. About those vehicles the people in this world used. Cars, was it? They were agonizingly slow sometimes. Some were unnecessarily shiny and they seemed to come in many different colors and models, for some reason.

"Hmmm… I suppose… you can have a look." she muttered a little hesitantly. Deidara grinned happily and got up, sitting on the arm of the armchair Alex had located herself on. He curiously peeked at the screen. "You remember how I told you, that you guys are… from a manga?" she said in a low voice, probably so Sasuke couldn't hear her.

"Is this it, yeah?" Deidara said with a wide eye, staring at the screen with a shocked expression. "Wait… HOLY CRAP! Is _that _M- mmm!" Alex quickly put a hand on his mouth, glaring at him.

"Not so loud idiot!" she said panicked, glancing at Sasuke, who was now staring at them with a frown.

"What are you doing?" he demanded to know, a suspicious undertone in his voice.

"Ah, nothing important, Sa-su-ke-_kun_!" Alex said in a casual manner with a smile on her face. Sasuke, obviously annoyed with the… over-pronunciation of his name with the honorific, stood up and walked upstairs, leaving the room. At the same moment, Gaara and Ella walked in from the kitchen.

"Alex, we don't have any bread left. Can you please go buy some later?" Ella requested.

"Sure. Hey, why don't you take a nap? You look tired."

"I'm fine, just fine!" Ella said with a cheerful smile, which was quite obviously fake.

"That injury isn't going to heal with you running around and straining your arm." I noted, annoyed that she was still being reckless with her wound. Just like Hidan. The moron also had a tendency to disregard all injuries just because he was immortal, and then of course it came back to bite him in the ass. I distinctly remembered a day he'd gotten his right arm injured in a battle, but had ignored it in the next battle. Predictably, his right arm became useless and I had to go and save him from getting his head chopped off, considering he mainly used his right hand to wield his scythe. I guessed Ella's reason for ignoring her injuries was because she had some sort of _don't-worry-about-me_-complex. Hmm. Was there a name for that sort of complex? Either way, it was reckless and moronic.

"It's fine…." she mumbled with a frown, and then quickly changed the topic. "Ah, Alex, is that the latest chapter?"

"Chapter?" Gaara questioned. "You mean… from our world?" he asked slowly, still not being quite used to the idea he came out of a manga. I wasn't either. But thinking about it wasn't going to make me feel better. If anything I might start to question my entire existence and drive myself crazy with questions. Alex nodded.

"Yeah, I guess you can have a look. It's not like you can prevent any of this. Anyway, I'm just catching up, Ella, but why is… I mean, seriously? On his CHEST! Why? Just WHY?"

"Looks messed up, yeah." Deidara agreed with a somewhat disgusted facial expression. I was really getting curious by now.

"Well, to use Mokuton you _do _need Hashirama's DNA…."

"But… on his chest, Ella? Why… it's… it's a damn _head_! What the fuck is Kishimoto thinking?"

"What are you talking about?" I asked with a deep frown. Hashirama's DNA? Hashirama Senju? A head on a chest? Who was Kishimoto? What was this sorcery? I stood up and walked over to them

"See for yourself, yeah." Deidara said, quite disturbed from whatever it was that was on the screen. I took a quick look, thinking they'd probably been exaggerating, but suffice to say they weren't. I kept staring at the black-and-white image of the legendary clan head, who seemed to have the Rinnegan and... Hashirama Senju's face on his chest.

What?

"How?"

"Well," Alex began to explain the entire ordeal "he has been revived with Edo Tensei, by a guy named Kabuto, who enhanced his powers by giving him Hashirama's DNA so he could use Mokuton, and uh... I guess that's how it all happened, sort of. Now he's toying around with the five Kages."

"Wait, Edo Tensei? Why was he revived?"

"There's an all-out war going on."

"Why?"

"Because Tobi was..." Alex stopped herself immediately and her eyes widened in horror. Tobi? What did that moron have to do with any of this?

"Tobi? What about him, yeah?" Deidara asked with a deep scowl. Ella and Alex exchanged nervous glances.

"He... uhm... decided to... join Kabuto after Deidara died and help him start the Fourth Shinobi War." Ella said hesitantly.

"_That _moron helped start a war?"

"He... had lots of pointers from Kabuto, I guess. He didn't have to do much, though, just a few essential things." I could tell Alex wasn't completely telling us the truth, but I decided it didn't matter much and I supposed it wasn't _too _far-fetched. Deidara, however, scoffed unhappily.

"Tch, we all die and that idiot is the only one to live? Unfair as hell, yeah."

"Dei," Alex sighed "you should know that in these mangas the good guys ALWAYS win. _Always. _You guys never stood a chance. Believe me, even Madara is going to get defeated at some point and everyone is going to live happily ever after."

"...Oh yeah, thanks. That makes me feel _so _much better." he snapped sarcastically, folding his arms like an unsatisfied child and plopped down on the couch with a pout.

"It makes _me _feel better." Gaara said, then quickly ducked to avoid the remote Deidara had decided to throw at him.

"Are you really this stupid?" I asked dryly, having hit a realization quite some time ago. Deidara frowned at me. "Now we know how this will probably end for us, considering we apparently came from a completely cliché manga, we can avoid getting killed once we return to our world."

"You're right!" Deidara said with a wide grin. "Alex, go to the part where I die, I wanna see what went wrong, yeah!"

"Dei, it really isn't going to make any difference. You're the bad guy, Sasuke is the sort-of good guy, you'll die every single time." Alex said with a stern look in her eyes. "The only way to avoid dying is to turn into a sort of anti-hero and join the good guys.. Even then it isn't sure if you'd survive, I mean, sometimes writers kill off the bad-guys-turned-good anyway just so they can be fully redeemed, but it's the best shot you have."

"You mean... you mean leave Akatsuki, yeah?" I considered this as well. If what she said was true, leaving the Akatsuki and joining the "good guys" as she put it, would be the only chance of survival. Needless to say, I wasn't entirely convinced. Deidara seemed to be somewhat in doubt. "The only reason I joined in the first place is 'cause of that guy, Itachi, yeah."

"Believe me, I have a feeling Itachi won't stick around when you return." Alex mumbled.

"Lexy," Ella suddenly said, furrowing her eyebrows "you realize you're messing up the entire plot of the story right now?" Alex shrugged.

"It was going to get messed up either way." she responded indifferently. "So, what are you guys going to do?"

"I think we'll cross that bridge when we get there, yeah." Deidara eventually responded, and I was inclined to agree.

"But didn't we all come from different timelines?" Gaara then asked. "How is that going to fit into our... story? What if our memory just gets erased and everything returns to normal?"

"Let's hope that happens." I said soberly. "I have no desire to make things even more complicated than they already are." They then went on reading whatever chapters were left and discussing them. Apparently The five Kages were getting floored by Madara.

"Did he just call Tsunade _ugly_?"

"Wow, really? That can't be right, yeah."

"I know! Have you seen her rack? What heterosexual man would call her ugly?"

"Maybe he's gay, yeah."

"Guys, stop being so childish. It's probably just a translation error, I'm pretty sure he didn't mean physically ugly."

"Please, Ella, we all know you're a closeted-yaoi fangirl and probably jumping at the idea there might be some subliminal Madara and Hashirama slash in there."

"A-am _not_! Don't be ridiculous!"

"What is slash?"

"Uhm, believe me Gaara, you do _not _want to know."

* * *

><p><strong>Madara<strong>

This world struck me as utterly pathetic. From what I had understood of the numerous books and newspapers Suzan had lying around, most countries had different parties that discussed with each other how to rule their countries. Most of the time, they didn't agree and compromises had to be made. Even if there was a president or prime-minister, he couldn't make decisions on his own without consulting others, asking for permission; there were so many political games it would've been maddening to me. Money, materialism, seemed to be the most important thing in this world. It was disgusting. There were generally no clans, only small families. Everything here seemed so... impersonal. It had a very different feel than my own world had. This world seemed colder. Suzan, Ella and Alexandria were all clan-less. While Ella had lost her family, it seemed Suzan and Alexandria were very distant of theirs. They seemed to be completely on their own. This world seemed... crueler, in a way.

I leaned back into the large seat in the study room on the first floor. It was filled with bookcases and it also had a bureau with a computer on top of it. Alexandria had attempted to explain how to work the thing, but apparently she didn't like being called Alexandria, so she'd just scowled at me and left me alone in the room. I had no idea what it could do or how to even control it, and after five frustrating minutes of trying to work the stupid device I'd been contemplating whether I should just throw it out the window and be done with the thing. But, I figured that would just create unnecessary drama, so I'd left it on the... loading screen, and was now getting bored. Which is why I'd started pondering about the frustrating world I was currently in.

Maybe not all was horrible. Suffice to say I was quite baffled when Ella had suddenly pushed my out of harm's way. I would've dodged it in the nick of time myself, maybe getting a small cut on my arm, yet she'd insisted on taking the hit for me, while she didn't even know me. Or, rather, she did. She did know me, and she probably should've known I wouldn't have done the same thing for her. Now she was in pain and yet she seemed content with her action. In my own world, yes, plenty of people would've gladly sacrifice themselves for me. But that was only because of who I was, their clan head, their leader. It was their duty. Ella had no such responsibility towards me. Her act had been one that came from instinct. Such a selfless act, out of instinct? Yet that was not all that continued to fascinate me. She seemed so incredibly innocent, at that age, and so naive. I could tell she'd never seen a single fight in her life.

I'd immediately noticed that we were complete opposites. First and foremost, she was lovable and could spare a smile to everyone. Even after losing her family she seemed to keep an optimistic outlook on life. I had no such characteristics. If _only _I could be as carefree as she was. She also seemed rather intimidated by me, especially in the beginning, and it had greatly amused me when I first met her. Now she seemed quite relaxed around me, just like how she was around others. She seemed like a very motherly person, and it was intriguing. Admirable, I suppose, to an extent, that she was so selfless.

Very much different from the other two girls. Alexandria was a child. Suzan _acted _like a child at times, losing her temper every now and then over trivial things. Alexandria, I'd learned, was just as carefree as Ella, but in a less mature manner. She always did the things she'd get the most fun out of, and avoided anything that seemed like a pain in the ass. But, she also seemed like a bright girl. Suzan was_ very _intelligent and astute. Had to be, with the amount of books she'd been reading and had stored into this room in case she wanted to read them again. Pity her hotheadedness and recklessness got in the way of that sometimes. She was also a lot more blunt than both Alexandria and Ella. Her straight-forwardness was a thing I could appreciate. I never liked trying to be subtle about things; it was a waste of time.

The door opened and interrupted my train of thoughts. The person standing in the doorway reminded me of the... little chat I'd had earlier. Sasuke walked in, closing the door behind him. I raised my eyebrows at his lack of manners and he frowned, not understanding why I was annoyed.

"Have you ever heard of the concept of knocking before you enter a room, Sasuke?" He blinked once, but then decided to ignore my comment and walked over to the window, peeking outside it as he leaned against the wall, his arms folded.

"What are you going to do?" he asked me, and my frown deepened. I knew instantly what he was talking about. I'd thought about it for a while, but I still wasn't satisfied with the options I had. Ideally, I wanted to be the first Hokage, but apparently, the _entire _clan was going to turn its back on me. The thought was maddening, but now I'd pondered about it for a while, it wasn't entirely unexpected. Before I'd gotten sucked into this world, it did seem like everyone was very... tired. Worn out from all the battles and all the deaths it had claimed. I just never thought they'd think I would want to start another war. The only thing I wanted to prevent was the Senju having a monopoly in the village. Did I really come off as a power-hungry maniac? Granted, I wasn't the nicest guy around, but I would _never_ drag them into a war unless it was absolutely necessary. Just because I enjoyed combat, didn't mean I was some sort of blood crazed lunatic who _enjoyed _seeing the ground get soaked in blood and covered in countless bodies.

First, what were my options? I could let things run their natural course. If Hashirama was elected the Hokage, partially because of my own clan betraying me, my first instinct would be to get furious and leave the village. After all I sacrificed, after all _Izuna _had sacrificed, they wanted to throw everything back in our faces? Especially after what my brother had given up, his eyes, his life; they might as well spit on his grave while they were at it. But, that had not taken place yet. I could still change things. Itachi had suggested two other possibilities. Either I remained in the village and settled for... _second_, or... I'd cooperate with Hashirama. Of course he'd immediately agree, considering he'd proposed this before.

"_Wouldn't things be easier if we cooperated, both for your clan and mine? Picking one leader from one side will just create more strife and conflicts." _

"_Please, you know as well as I do you'd jump at the opportunity to rule the village on your own."_

"_That's... that's not true! Those are not my intentions, I didn't... _we _didn't make this village just so one of us could boss the other around!"_

"_Is that what I'm supposed to believe? You bring all of these different clans together to create a village and then, what? Expect everything to run smoothly without a leader?" _

"_Of course it needs a leader... no, leaders. There doesn't need to be just one person calling the shots. The only intentions I had when creating this village was to create a place where there could be peace, even between _our _clans, but I can't do it alone, and I can't do it when you won't even hear me out!" _

"_So you're just a man of peace? Of course you are. Hashirama Senju is a saint! He couldn't _possibly_ be selfish, like that Madara Uchiha! That's what it comes down to, isn't? Everyone worships you like you're some sort of hero and kisses the ground you walk on, while _I _am being cast as the villain-"_

"_Madara, would you just _listen _ to me?" _

"_I'm done talking to you!"_

Yes, well, that conversation hadn't ended well for him. He'd tried talking to me about it on several different occasions, but every time my answer had been the same. Back then, I figured he had to be trying to look like the good guy and his proposals hadn't been serious. After all, every time I rejected it, I looked like the bad guy and he was the peacemaker, trying to be nice and polite, gaining more sympathy from the other clans for trying to negotiate. Eventually, all the sympathy he'd gained would lead him to become the first Hokage. Lately I'd been beginning to think that maybe he'd been truly genuine. Had I put myself in this situation? Had my pride really gotten in the way? How odd, then, that the man who didn't want to rule would be chosen as a ruler. The funny thing was, I'd actually started to believe his ranting about peace and cooperation lately.

Then I got zapped into this ridiculous world and told that he'd rule alone, which would lead to a weakened position for the Uchiha in the village, which would lead to a revolt, which would lead to a clan massacre. Needless to say that saying I was pissed at Hashirama wasn't even beginning to describe it. If he'd been really that genuine, why hadn't he just refused the damn position, then? Why hadn't he made a village council to rule over it instead, with _all _the clan heads if he was truly so set on peace and cooperation? Had everyone really wanted him as an alone-ruler that badly? How popular was this man?

I rubbed my temples, feeling my head starting to hurt from all the pent up anger and frustration. What was I going to do? What would Izuna have wanted? Prosperity of the clan, but above all else, peace. He'd entrusted me his eyes so I could end the battle once and for all, and bring peace to everyone. What did my clan want? Peace. What did the Senju clan want? Peace. Hell, even I wanted peace one way or another. But evidently the other clans, even my own clan, favored Hashirama as a ruler. Was I all alone in this? Could that mean I was wrong? That I should set aside my pride, my clan's pride, and work together with that man? Being the second Hokage was out of the question.

Madara Uchiha did _not _settle for second place.

"I don't have a definitive answer." Sasuke had been patient enough to wait for my response as I'd contemplated all of these things, and now glanced at me.

"You're in doubt." he observed.

"I'm curious," I said slowly, staring at my descendant and ignoring his statement "what do you think is the best course of action?" There was a silence for a long time.

"Any course of action that will prevent the massacre from taking place." he eventually answered. Of course he would answer something like that; the event had colored his entire life.

"You do not believe I should leave the village, then." I said sharply, wondering how he'd respond. Sasuke looked back at me now, seeming to be a little reluctant. "You can be honest with me, Sasuke." I added, as I wasn't very patient at the moment.

"Truthfully? No. I don't believe you should. There's no one else strong enough to represent the Uchiha clan. Either way, if you decide to go, it will end badly for us." I stayed silent, and cursed Hecate in my thoughts. If she'd left me alone, I would've never have to find out about the mess in the future my actions would indirectly create and get stressed over it.

Ignorance is truly bliss.

* * *

><p><strong>Tobi<strong>

"What are you doing?" I briefly looked up when I saw Itachi approach me as I was alone in the backyard. He seemed somewhat curious but also suspicious. I'd been trying to figure out if there was some way I could open a portal into our dimension, maybe even rip open a hole of some sort, with my Sharingan. So far, no such luck.

"Trying to find a way back to our world. Care to help?" I asked, and then receiving expected silence in return. "I suppose that would be a no, then?" I sat down on the grass next to the pool, leaning on my hands as I stared up at the clouds. "Not getting along well with your ancestor, are you?"

"What interest is it to you?"

"Come now, Itachi. There isn't much to do in this world, the only thing that brings me any kind of amusement is sticking my nose into other people's business." I replied matter-of-factly, sparing him a glance as he stood there, comfortable in his Akatsuki robe, staring down at me with an ever so slight frown on his face. "What will you do when we return?"

"I don't see why you would think I'd tell you that."

"Plotting something against me then, are you? Here I thought we were friends."

"Do you believe we will even return in the first place?" he asked, ignoring my previous statement all together. I scowled under my mask.

"Of course we will."

"How would you want to accomplish that? I know you want to bring in another deity, but how?"

"First of all," I scoffed "if we don't get the deity, that Hades, here to help us, we always have that one wish left as a backup plan. But, if any of the deities have any sort of brain I would expect them to be following this spectacle. After all, you don't see a Goddess get challenged by a mortal every day. So by now, they should know we're looking for help. Or rather, Hades should know. "

"Then why hasn't he come yet?"

"It's been just a few hours since we came with the idea to asking for his help. He could just be taking his sweet time. Maybe he's incredibly oblivious to everything going on on earth. Or maybe he's just an imbecile. I certainly can't imagine him being disinterested. From what Alex described, he seems to have some sort of grudge against Hecate. This would be the perfect opportunity to get rid of her."

"_Who_ are you calling an imbecile, mortal?"

The both of us turned to face the ruler of the Underworld, black smoke hovering around him. He was a tall, well-built man, with curly black hair, a pale skin and a black beard, seeming to be in his forties, if I had to give him an age. There was a certain glow around him, one unmistakably divine, and I could tell he was not one for jokes. He had a gray robe on with sandals, and a very serious expression on his face. It seemed I'd been right; he had been keeping an eye on us and I'd just needed to try and lure him out with a few words.

"I'm not calling anyone an imbecile. It was merely a thought." I responded coolly, standing up from my spot. I spotted both Suzan and Hidan leaning over the edge of the roof, peeking down at us. Suzan seemed quite shocked, whereas Hidan was only curious.

"Hey, old guy! Are you Hades?" he yelled at him. Hades raised his eyebrows, turning to look at Hidan.

"Ah, you. The "immortal" one. Intriguing." he stated, though in a tone that indicated he was actually more annoyed than intrigued. Hidan glared at him, obviously not liking his tone, and had probably been about to spout some profanities had Suzan not put her hand on his mouth before he could enrage Hades with his foul words.

"So you have come to help us, I assume?" Itachi asked, completely ignoring Hidan as he was pulled away by Suzan. Hades turned to look at him this time.

"Make no mistake. Hecate has been a thorn in my side for quite a long time. I'm not doing this out of sympathy. Every time that woman decides to go on a rampage and kill some people in a natural disaster it's more work for me." he grudgingly admitted, his resentment towards her quite obvious from what I could tell.

"What your motives are doesn't concern us. What can you offer us?" I said, getting straight to business. The sooner we could defeat Hecate and leave this world the better. At that time, I supposed Ella had finally spotted us, as she'd been in the kitchen, and walked outside, followed by Kakashi, who had a half-eaten apple in his hand. Hades glanced at them briefly, but showed no interest and answered my question.

"That depends on what you want."

"We want to return to our world, and make sure Hecate doesn't misuse her powers in this world." Kakashi answered calmly.

"How fortunate. That fits in perfectly with what I had in mind." Hades said with a small smile. "I can give you a means to take away her powers, and use them to open a portal to your own world."

"Take away her... powers? How do we do that?" The god pulled out a small, transparent star-shaped crystal from under his robe. It was slightly larger than his hand.

" But that's-" Ella started, recognizing the thing.

"It's not what you think it is. This object is created to store a deity's powers in it. As such, Hecate used one of these things to put a small portion of her power in it so you could use it to wish for something. Every God has one, in case we get weakened and need a boost. Strictly it's supposed to be used in emergencies, but of course Hecate didn't care much about that." Hades explained patiently, staring at the thing. "This one is big enough to store _all _of her powers. I had it... custom made."

"You want us to steal her powers and put it into that thing?" I said slowly, and Hades nodded once. "Why not just kill her?"

"We don't _have _to do that, do we?" Ella interrupted. "If we just take her powers away, it should be enough. There's no need for anyone to get hurt." Obviously, I hadn't quite mentally broken her at all, considering she was still as kind-hearted as always.

"Either way, killing her would be... somewhat unnecessary, but if you really want to, kill her _after _you've stolen her powers. If you kill her before that, her powers will just be lost."

"What do _you _get out of this?" I eventually asked, as there was no possible way the God of the Underworld would be doing this out of the kindness of his heart.

"I was getting to that. After you've opened a portal for yourselves, you hand the rest of the powers over to me."

"So you want her powers for yourself?" Itachi said with a slight scowl, obviously not liking the sound of that. Hades stayed silent for a second, long enough to make me want to agree with Itachi. Despite his response.

"I'm not that power-hungry. I'll give her powers to someone I can trust and who won't go on a rampage every time the other Gods don't pay enough attention to her." Hades scoffed, foldings his arms. "So, that is my condition. I want you to swear it on your soul, so in case you break the deal, I can come and take your souls with me to rot in eternity in my Underworld for trying to deceive me." he stated casually, as if he was talking about the weather. There was a silence, but I assumed everyone agreed it was a fair deal.

"Yes, yes, we swear it on our souls." I said, and Hades threw me the star thing, which seemed, and felt, relatively empty. The little one, of Hecate, had a glow around it and was silver. I assumed this one would be the same once we'd filled it up with her powers.

"Glad we could come to an agreement. Expect Hecate to come and confront you in a few days. She'll probably try and snatch the star away from you. Don't worry, when she shows up I'll be sure to lend you some of my strength so that you may actually deal some damage this time. And please stay sober this time. I've seen some of you try and fight while you were drunk, and suffice to say it looked pitiful. Till we meet again." The black smoke around him formed what seemed like a puddle of black liquid on the ground and he sank down in it, disappearing from sight.

That God definitely wasn't planning to let her live.

* * *

><p><strong>HOLY SHIZZ. MAJOR PLOT DEVELOPMENT! Does that kinda sorta make up for my absence? :3<strong>

**Well, it took me an awful long time to update. You see, my inspiration decided to take a long, LONG vacation, so I didn't feel like writing anything for quite a while.**

**But we're back, and the end is getting closer. Sort of. Expect a lot more development before we actually end this story, though. Yeah, there isn't much I can do with the plot anymore, but plenty of room left for character development! **

**I especially enjoyed developing Madara's character this chapter. *cough* _Totally a Madara fangirl *_cough* **

**Ah, don't worry, I won't be dragging it out, I just feel like some characters can definitely use more screen time before I decide to wrap up the story and move onto the sequel :D**

**BIG THANKS TO **_**Bookielovesanimeee, dettarsvenska, xXScarlattoOokamiXx, Good boy-chan, Animefangirl95, dark-spirited Bakura, yyh-ygo-fma, KitkatTenshi, Hanoonee, Rakiku Inoe, SeaDevil, Uzumaki Legend, Sacrifice Me Alice, JerrieHigarashi16, Vendelareader, Thunder Krystal, BeneaththeMarquee, Akatsuki's Bitch, Innocent-Psycho, Woodshrew, Kyokenbyo-Twisten Alchemist, RiotAct, xXxWolvesInTheNightxXx, xHead-in-the-Cloudsx, Mad Zia Magdalena, Mangal2012, ktizle13, Logarythm, Marskatr, mks 12 98, Balooga the Narutard, Amehh, Kingdark, coolseal9, MillaDragon**_** and **_**Eva246**_**! SO many people to thank! LOVE YOU ALL! **

**Reviews make my day!**

**...Also, I don't blame you if you decide to put a rage-review about how long I've been absent and how horrible I am for leaving you AIMH deprived for so long. ' Cause I TOTALLY agree T_T**


	25. Former glory

**This took a while. Suffice to say my freaking laptop (more specifically, Windows 7) crashed on me, so I had to write half of this on the computer in my living room.**

**Believe me when I say it's **_**hard **_**to write with your parents constantly peeking over your shoulder and asking you what the hell you're doing.**

**Anyway.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

It was just thirty minutes after Hades had shown up. Tobi told me to go inform the others (namely Madara, I assumed, or so he'd very much hinted towards, because of course he couldn't be direct, he was _Tobi)._ Needless to say, I didn't feel like doing that, mostly because _Tobi _had told me to do it. You should know by now he was the only person I could say I truly, really, honestly hated. It was a small hatred, inside of my chest, welling up whenever he talked to me, or looked at me. Christ, his _presence _was enough to made me irritable. I couldn't find anything about this man to be even slightly redeemable. He was maliciousness wrapped into a paper of hatred stuffed into a bottle of evil and shipped to me personally with the boat of bad news.

"Hey, let's get drunk."

I blinked. I'd been spoken to, as I'd been sitting in the living room, and hadn't even realized it for a few seconds. Deidara was ranting about something to Kakuzu while they were sitting on the armchairs ("...and he _pulled my hair!_ Can you believe that shit, yeah?") Then I wondered if I'd heard what had been said to me correctly, so I frowned and kindly asked Suzan to repeat herself as she'd been sitting next to me for a while now. She said the exact same words she'd said just a second ago. Drunk. She wanted to get _drunk_.

"Why?"

"My dad just died."

"Oh."

Suzan scratched the back of her head, seeming to be unsure as to what to say next. She let out a sigh and said she'd gotten a text message from her cousin, informing her that her dad had finally passed away. I gave her a concerned look. She didn't seem very sad, merely tired. Of course, she hadn't had any sort of real connection with her father. Still, her lack of emotion worried me.

"I'm fine." she said curtly, as she relaxed back into the couch.

"You don't need to bottle it up, you know." I said softly. Suzan shot me an annoyed look.

"El, you of all people should know I'm not in the mood to talk right now."

"Of course, right, I'm sorry."

"You apologize way too quickly."

"Uh... sorry?"

"Forget about it, you're never going to learn." She smiled slightly at me, amusement mixed with weariness, then rubbed her forehead, and looked around, probably so she could find something to get distracted by. "Anyway, where'd you hide the wine?" she eventually asked me, and I scowled, folding my arms with a disapproving look.

"I'm not letting you get wasted. That's not the right way to deal with this, Suzan." I was starting to sound like my mother, and that actually made me a little happy inside.

"So I should lock myself up in a room for a month? Is that the right way to deal with this?" she snapped at me, irritably. Wow, that stung a little. She seemed to instantly regret it though. "Sorry, Ella, that was a stupid thing to say. I'm just a little... ugh." I understood her completely, and nodded, putting an arm around her shoulders. Suzan wasn't sad. She was angry. She was really angry, mostly at her father, but probably at herself as well. It was just the way she was. Her father hadn't been important enough to cry over, but just important enough for her to build up rage and take it out on someone else. I was okay with that, even if I was the target. She needed it.

"It's fine."

"Hey, guys. What's with the long faces? Who died?" Alex sat down next to us jokingly. Suzan glared at her for a moment, and I had to admit, there couldn't have been a worse moment for her to make a joke like that. Not like it was her fault, it was just unfortunate timing.

"My dad." Alex' smirk disappeared, and I awkwardly cast a glance at the ground, wondering whether I should say something.

"Oh." That had been my reaction as well. The blond eyed Suzan with a worried look in her eyes, but didn't say anything for a few moments, until she felt satisfied with a perfectly fitting response. "Sucks."

"Yeah."

There was a silence as we stared at the TV, which was fine. It was kind of hard to change the topic to something else without it sounding stupid. So the three of us just preferred to keep our mouths shut to avoid the situation turning awkward. I listened to Deidara trying to get Kakuzu's views on art ("Art doesn't get me money, so art is irrelevant.") as I tried to think of a way to subtly change the gloomy mood that had fallen over us.

Then a light-bulb popped up above my head.

"Suze, why don't you go tell Madara about the situation with Hades? Kakashi told you guys about it, right? Hey, he hasn't really seen the town yet either. You could go outside and give him a tour. I'm sure it'll be interesting." The brunette scowled.

"Why should _I _do it?" she replied grumpily.

"Well, I mean, it could take your mind off things, and maybe stop making you irrationally hate everyone who has _"Uchiha"_ as their surname." I then paled when I realized _all _Uchiha were in the living room. Itachi had just walked in from the kitchen and Sasuke and Madara had walked downstairs, and had totally heard me say that.

"It's _not _irrational hate! Besides, that's not true! I don't just randomly hate Uchiha, I mean, I like Itachi." Suzan protested, having no idea of the men being able to hear her.

I decided to stay quiet.

"He's the exception. Exception proves the rule, Suze. Admit it, you're _totally _in the Senju-camp." Alex teased her, also oblivious of the general Uchiha-presence in the room.

"No I'm not! I'm in the Hashirama-camp. There's a difference." Suzan corrected her with a frown.

"Hashirama fangirl. Madara would totally wreck him." Alex stated loudly. Suzan rolled her eyes.

"Madara fangirl. Hashirama would fuck his shit up." she retorted, even louder, making even Deidara and Kakuzu stop talking and look at them with interest. Oh dear. Was this going to turn into one of those ridiculous debates? Last week it was Itachi and Minato, before that it was Sasuke and Naruto, apparently this week it was Madara and Hashirama.

"Minato fangirl!"

"Itachi fangirl!"

"Naruto fangirl!"

"Sasuke fangirl!"

"JIRAIYA FANGIRL!"

"OROCHIMARU FANGIRL!"

Alex gasped, putting a hand on her mouth.

"Oh no you _didn't_!"

Suzan smirked.

"Oh yes I _did_!"

Commence the fighting. I sighed as the two started fighting, namely pulling each other's hair and rolling over the ground, screaming profanities at each other. They hadn't really messed around with each other ever since the Akatsuki (plus others) had been in the house. Now it seemed like the two of them were perfectly comfortable with fighting like two little boys. They knew when to stop (when someone got seriously hurt) and it was more like a game to them than anything. Deidara was chuckling amused at the scene, Kakuzu rolled his eyes and stared at the TV, both Sasuke and Madara just gazed at the two girls as if they were aliens (I could almost _hear _Madara thinking, _"Are those two mentally deficient or just extremely childish?" _while Sasuke looked like he wanted to facepalm as he sighed) . Itachi, on the other hand, ignored the entire scene for a moment as he sat down next to me.

"I have a fangirl?" he asked dryly, and I couldn't help but laugh at his seriousness

"Of course, you're just that awesome." I responded amused, leaning back in the couch. "Think you could beat Minato?"

"He was chosen Hokage for a reason, wasn't he? Besides, there's not point in arguing about it. The Yondaime is already dead." Meanwhile, Suzan and Alex were still shouting at each other. The fight had gone back to being about Madara versus Hashirama. Neither of the two had any clue who was in the room at this point. Madara seemed somewhat... entertained for the moment as he also took place on the couch.

"Susano'o owns!"

"Mokuton owns more!"

"You can take that Mokuton and shove it up your ass!"

"Oh fuck you, Hashirama is the strongest!"

"Not anym-"

"Girls." I spoke, interrupting Alex before she gave anything away. "Girls!" I then yelled again when they first wouldn't listen. They stopped wrestling and stared up at me. Both paled when he saw the two Uchiha sitting next to me on the couch, one simply observing and the other having a near-invisible smile on his face. "I'm pretty sure there's some who could defeat both of them at the same time." Madara scowled slightly, and the two girls stared at me as if I'd just killed their puppy.

"Liar! Who?" Alex immediately replied with a deep frown.

"The Sage of the Six Paths." Suzan gaped at me, and Alex just stared with a blank look on her face. At least I earned a laugh from Deidara and a chuckle from Itachi.

"Sage fangirl!" Suzan accused me dramatically, pointing a finger at me. "My eraser would destroy them all!" No arguing with that.

"You realize the manga is made with ink, right?" I turned to look at Kakashi, who was leaning against the wall, next to the door of the kitchen. Suzan glowered at him. "Common knowledge suggests an eraser can't erase ink. Or so they say. Never tried doing it. Maybe it might work, why don't you try it?" Obviously mocking her, and I tried not to giggle, then failed and giggled anyway. Suzan pursed her lips with an irritated look in her eyes as she and Alex stood up from the ground.

"Just _had _to go and ruin my joke, didn't you?" He shrugged casually, though I could see the outlines of his lips form into a smirk under his mask.

"Hey, Suze," Alex then asked as if she'd just realized something "weren't you going to give Madara... er... Madara-sama?" she corrected herself when Madara sent a death glare her direction. "Right, weren't you going to show him around town?"

"Is that so?"

"Since when!" The two involved parties spoke at the same time. Madara looked annoyed by this, and Suzan sighed. "Fine." she conceded. "I mean, if he even _wants _to." All eyes were now on said man, who seemed to be thinking.

"It's better than being locked up in _here_." he eventually decided, standing up.

"Ah, that... uhm, those clothes need to go, though. You'll attract _way _too much attention." I said carefully.

"Maybe cutting your hair would help too?" Suzan dryly noted, then got startled when Madara stared at her, rather intensely. "Okay, I get it. No hair cut. Jeez, no need to go all Death-Glare on me."

"Tobi wants to go too!" Me and Suzan stared at the masked man who was on the stairs, flailing his arms.

"No!" Suzan immediately screeched. "Oh no, you stay away from me! The two of you is just too much!"

"Suzan-chan can't make me! Tobi is coming too!" Tobi sang cheerfully, and Suzan was desperate not to have that guy with her, and I really couldn't blame her. Then she immediately turned to Deidara.

"Dei!"

"Hell no!"

"Come _on, _Dei!"

"Why don't you ask your boyfriend, yeah?" the bomber huffed annoyed, folding his arms with a stern look. Suzan pouted.

"Ritual!" she whined as an answer. "You know how long that takes?"

"Just go with her, Dei." Alex backed Suzan up. "What's the worst that could happen to ya?"

"Fine, fine! But you owe me one." he eventually sighed. "You're lucky I'm such an awesome friend, yeah."

"Smart choice." Itachi muttered just loud enough for me to hear. I blinked.

"Huh? How so?" I asked curiously. He glanced at me.

"With Deidara around Tobi won't be able to do any psychological damage to her like he did with you. He can't reveal who he is, after all." he said in a hushed tone. For a second I was completely distracted, because I had to admit, when he was speaking softly into my ear it sent chills down my spine. I blinked. _Focus._

"Oh. Yeah, I guess that's smart." I said with a small smile. I was relieved; at least Suzan wouldn't be completely uncomfortable now. Though she'd never liked Madara, I had a strange feeling they might get along better than she would've thought. After all, the first time I'd met him I thought he was going to bite my head off or something, but he turned out to be quite okay. As far as an Uchiha clan head could be considered "okay", that is. He still had a huge ego, but I guess that was normal for someone in his position.

Speaking of which, he was nowhere to be found. Probably had gone upstairs to change his clothes. Kakashi took his place on the couch next to me, his trusty book in his hand as he was reading. I got curious, as I always saw him reading that book in the anime. Back when I'd been in the kitchen, before I saw Hades appear in the garden, he'd been reading it as well.

"Don't you ever get tired of reading the same book?" I asked, resisting the urge to peek over his shoulder. He glanced at me.

"Nope."

"Why? Is it _that _good?"

"Pretty much."

"Huh. So what's it about, anyway? Is it porn or something?" Kakashi stared at me and blinked, not having expected that question. Deidara snickered.

"No, it's not _porn_. It is a literary masterpiece, a novel about passionate romance, a-"

"It's porn, yeah." I snorted a laugh, putting a hand on my mouth as Deidara interrupted Kakashi who'd been about to go on a heartfelt rant about his beloved book. "Seriously, never seen a guy been that excited about a book unless it was a porno." I hadn't _meant _to laugh... I'm sure it was a very enlightening story. Maybe.

"Dei, stop being so childish." I scolded him half-heartedly, trying to look serious as I suppressed a smile. The blond shrugged as he received a subtle glare from Kakashi, and then turned to Kakuzu to annoy him some more instead while he was waiting for Madara to come downstairs. Suzan had taken it upon herself to try and stare Tobi to death, who was cheerfully glued to the TV, watching a comedy movie. Meanwhile, I noticed I hadn't seen Sasuke the whole day. I turned to Itachi.

"Where's your brother?" I asked. He glanced at me.

"Last time I saw him, he went upstairs. Why do you ask?" I bit my lower lip. I really, _really _wanted Sasuke to stop hating me, for whatever reason. I still didn't understand what I'd done wrong. If I could just get the boy to be honest with me, I would feel a lot better. I didn't like knowing someone loathed me, I only wanted to surround myself with the people I liked and who liked me. Of course I wasn't going to tell Itachi this in front of everyone.

"Ah, just wanted to have a chat with him, that's all." I responded instead, and it was true. Itachi leaned back, staring at the TV.

"I'm not quite sure that's a good idea." he replied nonchalantly, and I frowned. He glanced and sighed. "He doesn't seem to like you much."

"Which is why I should go talk to him, right? I wanna know what I did to set him off."

"Ella, sometimes people just don't get along. It's natural." I shook my head stubbornly.

"I'm sure I can get him to open up to me! Sometimes he kind of reminds me of Suzan when she was younger, only he doesn't have the same temper..."

"Hey!" Suzan scoffed. "I'm not nearly that annoying! Don't compare me to that guy." she stated with a glare, and I chuckled.

"I'm sure he'd say the same about you."

"Shut up." I turned to Itachi again, who'd raised his eyebrows, clearly not convinced.

"You know, maybe you should talk to him more often." I randomly said. I hadn't really seen them interacting like brothers would, and yeah, it was to be expected from people in their position, but I felt like they could both put a little more effort into getting to know each other again. Itachi had stated he was tired of acting and running away, though I could tell there was still an awkward atmosphere whenever the two were just talking. Itachi didn't respond.

"I'm sure Itachi-san knows what's best." Kakashi commented, though it was impossible for me to figure out whether he'd been mocking him or trying to get me to butt out of their business. So, naturally, I persisted.

"From the way Sasuke is scowling all the time I'd say he wouldn't agree." I said, glancing at Itachi, who seemed rather contemplative, but still wouldn't answer. "They should have a heart-to-heart talk." I could think of two other people who should have a heart-to-heart talk. I stared at Kakashi.

"Perhaps Itachi-san simply isn't sure how to approach the situation. Sasuke has been quite blunt with him, after all." It seemed he knew what I was talking about.

"Shouldn't that make it _easier _for them to talk?"

"That depends. Does Sasuke even know what he himself wants?" Kakashi was staring right back at me with a slight frown I pouted and looked away.

"I'm pretty sure Sasuke has been perfectly straight-forward."

"And _I'm_ pretty sure this no longer is about Sasuke and I." Itachi noted objectively, observing the two of us with a slight scowl, which more or less fueled the incredibly subtle argument I was having with Kakashi.

"I told you the truth, but then you decided to pretend like I'd never said anything and just sit there, reading your stupid book!" I huffed irritably. The moment I'd told him there was a possibility I could fall for him, he'd gazed at me for a few seconds, then had laughed it off and sat down, reading his book, stating, _"We can talk about this later, right?" _That didn't sit well with me. If there was one thing I couldn't stand it was people ignoring their own feelings.

"The book _isn't _stupid. What did you want me to do? Get down on one knee and sing you a serenade?"

"No, I wanted you to be honest!" I replied annoyed, pouting. "It's not like you had any problems flirting with me!"

"That was different, I wasn't being serious-"

"You know what? You sit here and think about your feelings, Itachi and I will go and find Sasuke." I said displeased, grabbing Itachi's hand and pulling him up with me.

"Ella, I'm perfectly capable of walking on my own." he noted slightly amused. I glanced back at Kakashi whom I caught glaring at Itachi (more specifically our connected hands), and noticed the Uchiha shooting him a glare back before he let me lead him on, up the stairs. Perhaps I'd been a little too hasty and direct. But when it came to matters such as love I just couldn't sit still and wait patiently until the other person had decided what to do. I was... very active like that (Alex called me a seductress multiple times in the past, but that is unquestionably false, I don't _seduce _people, I just... uh, "guide" them in their falling in love with me). In any case, it wasn't like I went after every handsome man I met. I had pretty high standards.

"You walk a little too slow for my taste." I replied to him. Now I was thinking about seducing people, I wondered what kind of bond I had with Itachi. It had been purely platonic in the beginning right? Well, maybe not. But mostly, I suppose. In the beginning I'd been intimidated by him, then I guess we'd gotten along on friendly terms. Then Hecate (damn her) had swapped our bodies, and I'd realized how _severe _his actions had been. But he'd also readily admitted the mistakes he'd made, and I truly believed he wanted to redeem himself. I found that a very admirable trait. Not many people could admit their faults like that. Did it make up for what he'd done? No. But dwelling on the past wasn't going to make anyone any happier.

I guess I really, _really _had no idea what to think with him. I didn't even know what he viewed me as. While it was very clear what the potential was between me and Kakashi, whatever connection I had with Itachi was still a complete mystery to me. It was kind of... intriguing, actually. I'd rarely been in this kind of situation before where I couldn't determine whether a friendship could turn into something more. I suppose it depended mostly on Itachi himself.

I opened the door to the study room, since Sasuke seemed to spend most of his time there. Bingo, found him! I smiled, and he glanced at me, at me holding his brother's hand, then glared. I then pulled my hand back from Itachi, suddenly feeling rather uncomfortable.

"Hey, what's up?" I asked in a cheerful manner.

"Why are you here?" he asked boldly, sitting in the bureau-chair against the desk, his head leaning on his right hand as he looked at me.

"Just... wanted to have a chat."

"I have nothing to talk about with you."

"Sasuke," Itachi spoke up with an ever so slight frown "I thought we talked about this." Sasuke's scowl deepened for a moment, as he was rather affronted, and then he looked away, staying silent.

"We did. What's your point?" he eventually responded coolly.

"Could you just be honest with me and tell me what your problem is?" I asked, feeling a little too tired to be dealing with this.

"I don't owe you any explanation." I sighed deeply, and me and Itachi exchanged glances. Maybe he was right.

Maybe some people really just couldn't get along.

But that wasn't going to stop me from trying.

* * *

><p><strong>Alex<strong>

"Holy shit." I gazed at the blood down on the bathroom floor and Hidan lying down with the... the metal stick stabbed into his chest. Goddamn that looked _nasty. _Gaara peeked over my shoulder and had a hint of disgust on his face as he looked away. Hidan glared at the both of us, probably upset we'd interrupted his ridiculous praying to his bloodthirsty god. Honestly, what the hell did Suzan see in this guy? I asked why the hell it was necessary for him to stab himself with the praying stick, and Hidan started screaming profanities at us about how we should "fuck off" and let him pray in peace or else he'd shove mentioned "praying stick" up both of our asses.

So we pretty much got the hell away from there, only to see Madara walk out of his room in simple jeans and a casual, black blazer with a plain, white shirt underneath. He seemed somewhat uncomfortable in the rather tight jeans, and to be honest, he didn't really look intimidating in the least if you looked at him from behind. I chuckled, and he turned his head, shooting a glare at me.

"Is something funny?" he asked, daring me to make a smartass remark. I shot a look at Gaara, who didn't seem to think it was a good idea either as he gave me a warning stare back. But I just couldn't resist.

"How are those pants?" I asked innocently. Madara narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Just fine."

"Yeah? They look good on you." I said with a wide smirk. "You seem like the type for skinny jeans."

"Skinny jeans?" he repeated, not understanding what the term meant.

"Yeah. They're pants like yours, just tighter."

"You make pants _tighter _than these?" he responded incredulously.

"Yeah, usually, men here wear heels under them-" I said matter-of-factly as I pointed to the white sneakers he'd put on "-so it accentuates the muscles in the legs. So you should probably put some on."

Unfortunately, Madara didn't buy my bullshit.

"Do you think I'm royally stupid, brat?" Gaara sighed beside me, and I was pretty sure that if he'd been any more expressive of his distaste he would've facepalmed, and I scratched the back of my head, a goofy grin on my face.

"It was worth a shot." I replied with a shrug, and he rolled his eyes, ignoring me from there on and making his way downstairs with as much of an air as he could, like he dominated the house. I'm pretty sure if it would come to who the strongest was, he'd dominate anyway, but for now it was just annoying. Gaara stared at me and I pouted.

"Don't give me that look! You know you would've laughed your ass off if he'd actually put on heels." Gaara smiled slightly.

"Maybe, but you have some guts talking to him like that." I snickered.

"I guess. Ah, just imagine him strutting around on red heels while shaking his hips-"

"I'm not quite sure I even _want _to have that mental image in mind." Gaara interrupted me, somewhat disturbed.

"Hmm, really? I think he'd make a very sexy woman."

"Alex. Please."

"Alright, alright. Sorry. Come on, let's go annoy Kakuzu!" He followed me downstairs, though I was a hundred percent certain he wouldn't be annoying Kakuzu any time soon. The two seemed to somewhat get along, actually. I wondered what would happen when they finally returned. It seemed almost unthinkable that they'd, well, that at least Kakuzu and Deidara would... ally themselves with Konoha or any of the good guys, but maybe it wouldn't even ever get to that point. When we finally got to the living room I noticed Kakashi seemed a little annoyed, even while he was reading his book. Deidara wasn't around, unfortunately, so he couldn't annoy Kakuzu with me. In fact, the only two in the living room were Kakuzu and Kakashi at the moment. Everyone else had somewhere else to be, apparently.

I happily sat down next to Kakashi, looking at Kakuzu who was looking at a horror movie. I didn't recognize it. Something with zombies, and a guy getting his face eaten, whatever. Gaara sat down next to me, not seeming to be planning on being very involved in my annoy-the-grandpa scheme.

"So, Kakuzu," I spoke loudly "a little bird told me you're totally Ella's lovable grandpa." Little bird being Ella herself, in this case. Kakuzu glared at me, and Gaara seemed to be getting a little uneasy. Kakashi looked up from his book, surprised.

"Do tell me where the little bird that told you that is so I can kill it." the old man responded with clear killing intent.

"Aw, come on. It's nothing to be ashamed about! Everyone likes Ella! Well, except Sasuke, but he's crazy so we can dismiss him." I said casually, and Gaara cracked a smile. Kakashi was now a lot more interested in our conversation than his book. Kakuzu was not amused.

"Don't you have anything else to do?"

"Like what?"

"How should I know? Teenage girl stuff? Go do your hair and leave me alone, brat." I pouted.

"Why does everyone keep calling me a brat?"

"Because you _are _one?" Kakashi answered, then raised his hands as a I-mean-no-harm gesture when I glowered at him. "I'm just saying what they're thinking." he said amused, putting his book away. I rolled my eyes, getting annoyed easily. I did have a lot of patience, and it took a lot to get me angry. Then _if _I got angry it usually didn't end too well, like what had happened with Tobi. My childhood hadn't been very cheery, and I'd been surrounded in a place where using brute force and violence to solve problems had been considered normal. But as a kid, I never got to say anything. I was expected to shut up and do what my parents told me. I guess that frustration had built up for a long while, and I didn't know how else to deal with it than to just... let it all go at once. I had no self-control.

Suffice to say I was more than relieved when child protective services took me away from my parents. I hadn't been beaten or anything like that, but the verbal abuse I had to take day in and day out had taken its toll on me. Then I ended up with a shady guy who recognized how great I was with computers at a very young age. I knew very well he used me to get money, but I didn't mind as long as I got my fair share of the deal. Hacking was just too easy. Some of the rich folk were truly naive when it came to technology.

Thinking about it now made me realize I hadn't gotten a new job for quite a while. Not that I was complaining, my guardian could really be a perfectionist asshole about some things, constantly peeking over my shoulder, making sure I was doing it right. Tch.

Then my phone vibrated in my pocket. Text message? I pulled out my phone and looked at the screen, then smiled when I saw who'd sent me a message.

"What are you smirking about?" Kakuzu asked suspiciously.

"Calm your panties, I'm not plotting to kill you." I retorted as I was already sending a text message back, not noticing Gaara peeking over my shoulder.

"Who is Atum?"

"None of your business!" I snapped defensively, pulling my phone out of his vision.

"Alex, you didn't tell us you had a boyfriend." Kakashi teased, and I glowered.

"He's _not_... ugh, it's just a guy I met, alright!" I traveled a lot, and I loved to go to Egypt, since my roots were there, I think a grandmother of mine had been born in Egypt. And yeah, maybe I'd met a cute boy there, but it wasn't like it was any of their business!

"Perfect. Annoy him instead of me, so I won't have to waste my time and kill you." Kakuzu said dryly, and I frowned but didn't respond. Damn, he just had to send a text at the worst possible moment. He was in America this week, and I would've loved to meet up with him, but as it was I was stuck here, in this house.

"I don't see why you're embarrassed," Kakashi went on "love is a perfectly natural-"

"-Just shut up about it already!" I cried, putting my phone back in my pocket as I was getting annoyed and he seemed to be entertained by it. I'm sure Kakuzu was too, the old bastard. "You don't see _me _going on and on about your little crush on Ella, do you?" I sneered.

"You're in love with Ella?" Gaara asked somewhat surprised as he stared at Kakashi, who scowled.

"No." he muttered. "No, of course not. That would be irresponsible. We're pretty much going to leave in a few days, aren't we?" I was pretty damn sure he was totally lying to our faces.

"Hmm. All I'm saying is, _if _you would've had a crush on Ella, it would've been good to make a move fast. Or Itachi might snatch her away from you." I said with a shrug, thoroughly amused by how I was actually somewhat annoying him.

"That would've been good advice, had it actually applied to me." Kakashi retorted calmly, and I narrowed my eyes. _Sly bastard._

"Kakuzu, have _you _ever been in love?" I resorted to try and irritate the grandpa again since Kakashi wasn't budging.

"None of your business, brat."

"From your bitter tone I'm guessing that's a yes?" Pure killing intent. "O-okay... calm down, jeez." I turned to Gaara. "What about you, huh?" The Kazekage blinked. I wasn't trying to annoy him. It was actually pure curiosity.

"No." he answered simply. I raised my eyebrows, surprised.

"Really? Not even a childhood crush?" He shook his head. "Oh. Well, you'll have to do something about that. I mean, the Kazekage can't stay single, right? That would be just sad."

"You realize all the current Kage are single?" Kakashi noted dryly, and I rolled my eyes.

"Well, yeah, they're sad, forever alone and old, moving on now." I waved it off, Gaara raising his eyebrows and the masked copy ninja folding his arms, observing me quietly. Kakuzu was completely disinterested. I'd bet you a hundred some woman had broken his heart at some point and that's why he was being a bitter old jerk about it. "Anyway, you should find a nice girl. I'm sure you have plenty of fangirls?"

"Yes, but I'm not... interested." Gaara replied, seeming to be somewhat uneasy on this topic.

"Right, of course. You have to find someone who likes you for who you are, right? Not just a random fangirl. I'm sure there's someone out there who'd be a perfect match for you."

"Er... okay?"

"I can't think of any girl right now, but I think a good match with you would be a girl who's passionate, confident, sweet and, and also cheerful. Someone playful, I guess, to balance out your seriousness?"

"I don't think the Kazekage appreciates you playing match maker for him, Alex." Kakashi said, having pulled out his book again and reading it as he commented. I shot him a glare.

"You know, I _do _wonder what Ella and Itachi are doing upstairs-" Kakashi glanced at me in a very composed manner (though I could see him getting really irritated now), stood up and promptly left the room, retreating to the kitchen. Damn. Here I hoped I could've teased him more. I turned back to Gaara.

"That was... almost cruel." he stated, though he seemed a little amused himself.

"He's going to have to do something eventually. I'm just trying to give him a push in the right direction. I'm not doing this just to annoy him, or anything." I huffed, displeased they were unappreciative of my "efforts" to get Kakashi to see the light. Kakuzu responded rather sardonically to my statement.

"Of _course_ you are, brat."

"No, seriously!"

"We both know that's about as true as pigs flying."

"Oh ha ha, Kazekage Gaara. I never knew you had a sense of humor."

"I don't. But you just make it too easy."

* * *

><p><strong>Hades<strong>

I wouldn't call the Underworld a cheery place, by all means. But today I was in a good mood. Hecate had been a thorn in my side for a long time. Recklessly causing natural disasters like a child with a temper tantrum; it was annoying and it was time we did something about it. Personally I would've liked getting rid of her all together, but of course Zeus and the other Gods and Goddesses wouldn't stand for that. Tch, I guess everything was all rainbows and sunshine and you could do whatever you wanted as long as you didn't kill a fellow God or Goddess, even if the person in question was being completely irresponsible.

I considered the consequences a while ago. No doubt Zeus would decide to punish me in some way if I actually killed Hecate. That wasn't much of an option. Then there was the question of what to do with her powers. I could always give them to someone I trusted, a loyal servant, perhaps? Though, I weighed my options carefully. I could always take her powers for _myself_. Portals, the power to grant wishes, create natural disasters whenever I pleased, witchcraft... it was very tempting, to say the least.

Even while the humans had completely forgotten her and most of the other deities considered her to be a joke because of this, they still had some respect for her. Or rather, for what she used to be. The glorious Goddess with the stunning power to grant any wish, whatever you wanted. Beautiful, kind, intelligent... now withered away and becoming bitter with the years, the more humans forgot her, the less the other deities listened to her, the more vengeful she became until there was nothing left but the wicked old witch of human lore, the lore that had tarnished her reputation in the first place. Ironic how she'd actually turned out to be just how the humans had started describing her over the years.

Perhaps spending a few years in the darkest pit in my Underworld would be a nice compromise? I felt like just taking away her powers and immortality was way too lenient of a punishment. Of course it was mostly because I held a personal grudge against her, but even so, I was fairly certain creating a tsunami and randomly drowning that many humans didn't sit well with the others, and I could easily persuade them to immediately hand her over to me instead of just making her mortal and let her live as a human. They didn't need to know the details of what I had in store for her, of course. Let's not think about such trivial things and focus on the bigger matters at hand.

Though I could not take action against her personally, I'd found some pawns willing to play my game. There was one to watch out for, however. The masked man, this "Tobi" figure, there was no doubt in my mind he was going to try and pull something at _some _point. I couldn't trust him at all. The only question was, how was he going to try to get out under his promise?

I sat down on my throne, wondering what to do next, when I felt a presence approaching. _Oh? This should be interesting. _

"Hades."

"Hecate. Looking lovely as always." I mocked her as I leaned back in my throne, looking down on the once revered Goddess. Her black hair had dulled, the slight, golden glow around her had diminished a great deal over the years. Where it had once been radiating, now it was pathetically illuminating only the smallest portion of the darkness around her. She looked somewhat sullen, her once bright blue eyes dimmed to a dark blue color as she glared up at me from where she stood. I couldn't harm her personally, as she couldn't harm me personally. That much we'd agreed on.

"What are you trying to accomplish?" she demanded to know. I scoffed at her.

"Isn't that obvious by now?" I stood up, walking down the dark, stone steps as I approached her. "I'm making sure justice is served."

"Since when is that _your _duty?" she snapped at me, displeased with my involvement.

"Surely you could've seen it coming. You've broken numerous rules over the past decades. The others didn't want to get their hands dirty because of what you once were. But I can see you now, in the present. You're a shell of your former glory, it's pitiful how far you've fallen. I suppose I'm the only one willing to do something about your reckless behavior." Hecate's dark eyes glared into mine, filled with fury and almost bordering on insane.

"You know nothing, you have no right!"

"I know enough to make a valid decision. Zeus has entrusted me to get rid of you accordingly, one way or another." I threatened in a perfectly calm manner, putting emphasis on the last few words and she was taken aback by the implications of my statement.

"You wouldn't _dare_! That's against law!"

"Would you be willing to risk your life to find out?"

There was a short, tense silence as she continued to stare at me, trying to figure me out. She hadn't called my bluff, and instead, spun around, turning her back to me, stalking out of my throne room.

Truly, like a child, throwing a temper tantrum.

* * *

><p><strong>Mmm... I don't think this is my best chapter yet, but oh well :\<strong>

**That was it for this chapter. Next chapter will include Suzan's hilarious (and awful) walk with Tobi, Madara and Deidara, where she will be kindly (not really) informing Madara about the situation with Hades.  
>Ella tries befriending Sasuke, and some more stuff, I guess. It will be a short chapter, though, due to the massive amount of exams I have to take this week T_T<strong>

**For those of you who are curious, there are about... what, three chapters left until we hit the end? So... yeah :D**

**After the final chapter, I think I might give you a little preview to the sequel. But, don't expect me to update the sequel immediately after I finish this story. I'm planning on writing the first few chapters of the sequel before I post anything, so you won't hear anything from me for about... two weeks at least, possibly longer xD**

**I still need to think of a good title... goddammit, that's gonna be such a pain in the ass.**

**Just 'cause I'm curious, what's your favorite pairing in the story? Can be existing or non-existing. Hell, you can love SuzanxElla for all I care xD**

**BIG THANKS TO **_**yyh-ygo-fma, 0Kuro Tenshi0, mks 12 98, x Valor, KitkatTenshi, Mad Zia Magdalena, Tinchie, Balooga the Narutard, JerrieHigarashi16, Thunder Krystal, Rakiku Inoe, RiverBandit, Logarythm, SeaDevil, BeneaththeMarquee, xXxWolvesInTheNightxXx, The Ultimate Baka, RiotAct, Animefangirl95, dettaarsvenska, Bookielovesanimeeee, Woodshrew, Good boy-chan, akagami hime chan, Amehh, Chief Bomber Deidara, Hanoonee, dark-spirited Bakura, Vendelareader, Kakashifan727**_** and **_**UZUMAKI LEGEND**_**! Love you guys! ;D**

**See ya next time.**


	26. Bittersweet Shizznuts

**Yeah, remember how I said I wouldn't let you wait again like last time?**

**...I'M SO SORRY!**

**Real life got in the way. *shrug* Shit happens.**

**HOLY SHIZZNUTS THIS IS THE LONGEST CHAPTER YET!  
><strong>

**Wait... shizznuts? What the fuck, where did THAT come from? What does that even MEAN?  
><strong>

**Fuck it. I'm putting it in the title, just for the hell of it. HA. Take that, you people who try to make poetic chapter titles!  
><strong>

**Oh my god I need to go get some sleep before I go insane...  
><strong>

**So... I don't know what to think of this chapter... it's very... relaxed? Uh... something like that. Not eventful, not particularly romantic either. I just figured this story needed a little break from all the... er, stuff. You know. Stuff gets annoying.  
><strong>

**I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore at this point.**

**Anyway, enjoy.**

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

This was quite possibly the most awkward situation I'd ever been in.

"I spy, with my little eye..."

Quite possibly?

"...something yellow!"

Scratch that.

"Is it my hair again, Tobi?"

This _was _the most awkward situation I'd ever been in.

"Oooh, good guess, senpai!"

I exchanged looks with Madara. For once, the two of us seemed to be thinking the same thing.

Tobi needs to die.

"Suzan-chan!" Oh god. Er... I mean... Zeus? Please. Please strike him down with lightning, for the sake of mankind and my sanity. I turned to the masked man with a sigh. He was wearing a hood so his mask wouldn't be as obvious to other people walking down the street. "Suzan-chan!" I didn't have a destination, I figured just walking around town would keep them amused enough. Madara certainly seemed fascinated with the cars, as he stared at each one that passed by, glancing at the wheels, probably trying to figure out how it worked. "SUZAN-CHAN!"

"What?" I snapped, not in the mood to being fucked with, especially when it was him. Though I had a short fuse, generally, I could easily see when someone was provoking me and trying to manipulate me. I did the same thing to others, after all. The only reason why I gave in anyway was because it was easier. If I really wanted to I could just stay calm and ignore them, but where was the fun in that?

"Can Tobi drive a car too?" he asked innocently. Tobi in a car. That could only result in the apocalypse with lots of dead bodies and randomly exploding buildings.

"When hell freezes over." I answered dryly, earning a chuckle from Deidara.

"I don't think Hades-san would appreciate that, though." Tobi pointed out cheerfully, making me want to strangle him, but then I realized the main reason I'd gone out for a walk anyway. I turned to Madara who was frowning.

"Right. I figured this would be a good opportunity to tell you that the God of the Underworld has decided to help us."

"At what cost?" was his first, immediate response. I shrugged.

"He gave us something that will help take away her powers. I assume he wants them for himself. Apparently Hecate has been causing quite a fuss in the realm of the Gods. They're keen on getting rid of her, one way or another." He stayed silent for a moment.

"When will she come...?" he muttered. I wasn't sure if it was a rhetorical question, so I answered anyway.

"Few days. I'm guessing three or four. She needs to get ready, as do we."

"Suzan-chan!" Tobi said for the nth time as he pulled the sleeve of my leather jacket. The close proximity to him made me tense and I shot him a glare, before I instantly jerked my arm away and distanced myself, nearly bumping into Madara who shot me an annoyed look. I could swear I heard Tobi chuckle. This old, senile, disturbed, disturbed, _disturbed_ man was having _way _too much fun. "Tobi wants to buy candy!"

How predictable.

"No."

"But... why not?" he questioned in a sad tone as if I'd just kicked his puppy. I glowered.

"Because I fucking said so." I huffed, trying to walk ahead and right past the candy store Tobi had seen when the man decided to cling to my arm and start whining. This made me feel like punching him but I knew he'd probably easily dodge it.

"Please, please, please! Tobi will be a good boy!" he nearly yelled into my ear, causing a scene in the middle of the street as I tried getting him off me. I shot a glare at both Madara and Deidara, the former completely apathetic to my pain and the latter laughing at me. _Thanks a lot, assholes._

"Get off me, Tobi!"

"Well, technically Tobi is just holding you, not-"

"Semantics, now let go, you prick!"

A few people walking by stared and one had the guts to actually say something.

"Hey lady, tell your boyfriend to shut up!"

_My WHAT_?

Deidara burst out into laughter once again as I dragged Tobi into the candy store, feeling severely traumatized and utterly appalled at the mere idea. I stopped in the middle of the store, glaring at Tobi who was silently humming a tune to himself, completely unaffected by my stress. He stopped humming once he realized I was glaring at him, and I swear he was smirking as he softly said,

"You look disturbed." I gazed at him as I folded my arms and distanced myself from him again.

"No shit I'm disturbed."

"That hurts my self-esteem, you know. I'm not that bad of a match, am I?"

"...How _old _are you?" He snickered as the other two joined us in the store. Needless to say the other customers were giving us curious glances every now and then, not that any of us actually cared.

"You may have a point." Tobi stated amused, staring at the many different types of chocolate lined up in the racks of the little store. "I have no interest in love affairs anyway. Too much of a headache." This made me curious.

"So... you had like... a relationship at some point?" He turned his head to stare at me in silence. "With a _woman_?"

"...No, Suzan, with a cow." he answered sarcastically. I raised my eyebrows, playing his game.

"That's illegal, you know." I hummed, suppressing a smirk. "...Poor cow." Tobi folded his arms as he stared at me from his one eye-hole, responding amused.

"Well, well. Aren't you the comedian?"

"Look who's talking, mister lollipop-head." I snorted. "I mean, jeez, for all I know you could've been gay. Or a pedophile." He chuckled.

"I'm not Orochimaru."

"Ouch, burn!" I said with an amused smirk, before I realized I was actually having a friendly conversation with this guy, and quickly turned away to get distracted. It just felt wrong. I should be hating his guts, not laughing with him.

Deidara was a few feet away where he couldn't hear us, looking at some lollipops. Madara held a pack of gum in his hands, frowning; probably couldn't figure out what the hell it was. I quickly walked over to him to avoid being alone with the masked man. Unfortunately he followed me, but maybe I could just ignore him. Maybe. Probably not, but I just felt really awkward at the moment and had rather not be alone with him.

I boldly grabbed the pack of gum from Madara's hands, trying not to look at Tobi who was curiously peeking over my shoulder.

"Want me to buy it for you?" Madara frowned at my question.

"What is it?" he asked curiously.

"Bubblegum." Tobi answered dryly. Madara raised an eyebrow at him.

"...How very informative."

"Well, it's... hard to explain. I'll buy some and show you." I stated, ignoring his sarcasm. Then a mother and a hyperactive kid entered the store. I could already tell where it was going when the kid started dragging his mother towards the lollipops. He picked out the biggest one and handed it to his mother. Kids these days, seriously. No way I was going to be a mother. I couldn't handle normal children, and if my kid was anything like me he or she was going to be a pain in the ass.

Kids... having kids, getting married... I suddenly felt depressed as I realized I'd probably have to settle for second best, seeing as how... the love of my life (yes, I said it, I went there bitches, it was cheesy but I said it and now I feel nauseous but it's _true_, dammit!) was going to leave me forever and the only way to see him again was going to be rereading the manga pages where he showed up. How pathetic is that?

Though, with his inevitable departure in mind, why the hell was I wasting my time here while I _should _be spending all of my time with Hidan?

_Oh my god. I'm a horrible girlfriend, _I realized, my heart sinking into my stomach as I thought about it.

"Jimmy, that's too big for you to eat." the stressed mother spoke, interrupting my thoughts. I looked at the two, trying to distract myself from the giant elephant in the room (_he's going to leave in a matter of days and you're wasting your time in the mall what kind of horrible lover are you you suck really you don't deserve him he's better off without you-) _but the boy shook his head stubbornly.

"I can eat it!" he insisted, and his mother sighed distressed, trying to reason with him. Idiot. Parents should never _reason _with their kids when it came to things like these; if you're reasoning with someone that's acknowledging they are your equals or that they have some form of power.

"Jimmy, it's really too big, it would be better if you picked something smaller, okay?"

"Nuh-uh! I want it!" the boy demanded loudly. Probably eight or maybe seven years old.

"Don't scream in the store, Jimmy!"

"I WANT IT!" the kid started seriously yelling. Unbearable to hear, really. I glowered at the kid, Tobi just shook his head, and Deidara looked like he wanted to say something as the child was standing right next to him, causing a scene, but Madara beat him to it. He stared at the child. The child momentarily stopped yelling like a spoiled brat and stared back.

"Be silent." he said in an irritated voice. I don't think he realized how intimidating he was because the child gaped up at him as if Madara were a monster about to sink his teeth into the boy's flesh. And he might as well have been; if the kid had been any louder I have no doubt in my mind Madara's glare would have made his head explode. The mother fidgeted awkwardly with her purse, as the boy was finally silent. Madara shot her the death glare too, poor woman, before he turned back to me and Tobi.

Quite frankly, the whole thing was hilarious.

I glanced at Deidara with a grin, who now walked over to me and threw me some candy, undeterred by Madara's menacing _I-will-murder-you-in-your-sleep_-glare that was still prominent on his face. Didn't take much to get the Uchiha grumpy.

"Buy it." Deidara said coolly while I caught his lollipop, as if I was his lackey or something.

"Pardon?" He glared. I glared back. He pouted.

"You dragged me on this trip, the least you could do to pay me back is buy me something, yeah." Deidara huffed, and I suppose I couldn't say no to that. I grabbed a chocolate bar for myself and grabbed Tobi's liquorice, then went to pay for them as the guys got out of the store. The minute I got out of the store again I threw the men their candy (I only just realized how weird it must've looked to see three adult men, with one wearing a weird mask, walking into a candy store) and immediately started eating my delicious chocolate.

Madara opened the bubblegum package and scrutinized the pink substance carefully, feeling the surface with his fingers and sniffing it curiously. I chuckled softly, and glanced over at Tobi who'd probably shoved all the liquorice into his mouth when we weren't looking, because I could distinctly hear loud chewing sounds coming from him. Deidara rolled his eyes as he was sucking on his lollipop and watching Madara study the bubblegum as if it were some sort of rare jewel.

"It's not poisonous, yeah. Just chew on it already." Madara scowled slightly, but put the bubblegum in his mouth nonetheless. "And don't swallow it. You're supposed to keep chewing on it."

"Why?" Madara asked, slightly puzzled. Me and Deidara exchanged glances.

"Uh... just 'cause?"

"You're telling me people in this world voluntarily chew on a substance without actually eating it. Why? What's the point?"

"It's... you can make bubbles with it?" Madara very slightly tilted his head to the side, raising one eyebrow as he was chewing on his bubblegum with his mouth closed.

"That is quite possibly the dumbest reason I have ever heard in my entire life. This world, for all its advancement in technology, is completely backwards." Tobi snorted a laugh, eating his liquorice. I folded my arms, as we were still walking through the streets of my town, then snatched some bubblegum away from him. He didn't stop me. I chewed on the bubblegum and blew a large bubble for a moment.

"Bet ya can't do that now can you, hmm?" I said with a smirk when Madara gazed at my awesome skills in the art of blowing a bubble with bubblegum. Then the Uchiha tried to imitate me and tried blowing a bubble. The bubble was larger than mine, almost the size of his head. But he blew a little too hard.

The bubble popped right into his face and hair.

I roared with laughter, clutching my stomach as tears began to form in my eyes, leaning on Deidara who was laughing with me, the lollipop nearly dropping out of his mouth and on the ground had he not pulled it out on time. Tobi was silent, scratching the back of his head as he stared at Madara, unsure how to approach this situation, no doubt wondering if he should laugh or try to help the Uchiha and which action would fit his role better.

"Oh my god, you _suck_!"

Aforementioned clan leader let out something resembling a hostile growl as he tried to get the gum off his face, glowering at us. I put a hand over my mouth, trying to stop laughing as my shoulders shook uncontrollably.

"Does... Madara-san want Tobi to-"

"Don't even _think _about touching me." Madara hissed, strongly resembling a very pissed off cat that was backed into a corner as he tried to pull the gum out of his hair. He directed his glare at me and blondie, and we quickly stopped laughing, as we didn't feel like getting our heads chopped off.

"It's alright, not everyone can blow a bubble. I mean my seven year old cousin can blow a bubble, but if _you_ can't do it, the mighty and legendary Madara Uchiha, it's nothing to be... ashamed about." I mused, pretending to be thoughtful as I walked into a clothes store, as I just remembered I was in need for a new pair of pants. Or skirt. Whatever, either would do.

"Don't push it, brat." I heard Madara mutter, and there was no doubt in my mind that if he didn't like me before, he certainly wasn't fond of me now. Not that I cared much, I was just hoping he didn't plot to... I dunno, humiliate me in some sort of way.

"What are we doing in this store, yeah?" Deidara asked bored, looking around to try to see if there was anything interesting.

"I need some new clothes. You guys can look around on your own if you want, just don't do anything stupid." I especially looked at Tobi while saying this, and then walked off to the ladies' section. I supposed a skirt would be a nice change from all the jeans I'd been wearing lately. I looked through several different skirts before I noticed Deidara holding up a pair of skinny jeans a few feet away, showing Madara, whose eyes widened slightly in surprise.

"Those are for _men_?" he scoffed. "...And I thought my pants were tight." I could barely hear him mutter as he tugged lightly at his own jeans, clearly uncomfortable.

"They're not that tight. Unless you're bragging about your size, yeah." Deidara snorted, putting the jeans back where he found them. I blinked.

_Please don't tell me they're talking about his dick._

"My... 'size'?"

"Yeah, you know. Your manhood?"

_Yep, they're talking about his dick. _

"I'm not bragging about anything. Why? Would _you _fit those pants?" Madara responded after a moment of contemplative silence, slightly amused. Deidara frowned, insulted as he folded his arms.

"Hey, I didn't say that, yeah! I'm a reasonable size." the blond muttered, unhumored by Madara's teasing. Teasing? Madara... teasing. Somehow that didn't sound right.

"Aha."

"What?"

"I see."

"See what? I'm not lying!"

"I never said you were." Deidara was obviously too temperamental to see Madara was just pestering him. Or he was like me and didn't give a damn.

I turned a light shade of red, trying to concentrate on the skirts instead of listening to _that _conversation any longer before my imagination decided to- oh god. Don't even go there.

I picked out a black, somewhat short skirt. It looked nice, and I had plenty of tops that would go with it. Now just to find a nice belt. Maybe a white one? I looked around, searching for the belts, when I noticed Tobi strolling around the store, seeming to be completely bored. He noticed me looking (unfortunately) and skipped over to me, looking at the skirt in my hands.

"Oooh, very sexy, Suzan-chan!" he chirped happily. "Aren't you going to try it on?" I gazed at him, starting to feel awkward.

"Tone it down." I mumbled uncomfortably when people were giving us stares.

"Suzan-chan isn't very happy today."

"What a brilliant observation. Why, Tobi, whatever made you notice that little fact, hmm?" Tobi responded in his real voice.

"Maybe the permanent scowl plastered on your face?" he noted, folding his arms.

"No."

"What do you mean, no?"

"No as in the opposite of yes."

"I figured as much, but why?"

"Because God said so and Jesus died for your sins."

"...What?"

"I feel like killing everyone in this store right now and handing them over to Sasori so he can make pretty dolls from them and we can all have a tea party together."

"What are you even talking about?"

"Pancakes, obviously."

"...I think you may have developed a severe mental disorder."

"No, I think it's more likely that my brains dropped out of my skull at some point and now I lost them. Call me when you see them, they're probably lying around on the street in a puddle of stupid."

"You have lost your mind. Literally."

"Indeed I have."

"Amusing."

"No doubt."

And that's how our completely nonsensical conversation ended. I don't know where that came from, don't ask me either, but I do know that I tended to say the most random things when I bottled all my stress up for extended periods.

"Where's the changing room?" Tobi wondered aloud, randomly changing the subject, and when he spotted it he grabbed me by the hand and pulled me towards it. By now I was so used to me being dragged everywhere by him like a little child that I didn't even resist as he shoved me into the changing room with the skirt in my hand.

"I still need a belt with this!" I called out, frustrated.

"Oi, idiot, what the hell are you doing now?" I heard Deidara's voice. Thank god for Dei.

"Tobi just helped Suzan-chan get to her changing room!"

"Can you do that next time without looking like a hyperactive retard?"

"Sorry, senpai! Why doesn't senpai try something on?"

"What for? It's not like I'm going to keep it anyway, yeah."

"Deidara-senpai, why don't you try on these jeans? You were admiring them earlier!"

"T-Tobi, oi! Hey, what are you- TOBI! What the- how the hell did you- GIVE ME BACK MY PANTS!"

"What is..." Madara's voice, meaning he'd come to see what all the fuss was about. "...What are you two doing?" he asked, sounding a little frustrated. I, in the meantime, had changed into the skirt quickly and now swiftly slipped out of the changing room, to see what the hell was going on. Tobi was standing outside of another changing room, holding in his hands what seemed to be Deidara's pants.

"How the hell did you steal those?" I asked curiously, and Tobi shrugged indifferently. I glanced over at Madara, but his attention had now been drawn to my exposed legs. I looked into the mirror on the wall opposite of my changing room.

"What are you staring at?" I asked, starting to feel uneasy.

"Those are rather... short."

"And?" I snapped defensively, expecting some sort of sneer. Instead he shrugged and turned away apathetically. It wasn't even that he'd been checking me out, not at all. More like an indifferent observation. Did this man have no sexuality whatsoever? I vaguely wondered what kind of woman he'd be attracted to. Probably someone elegant and powerful, no doubt. Wait, what if he wasn't even attracted to women in the first place? Ha! I suppressed a laugh. Well, it _would _explain his constant flattering of Hashirama in the latest chapters... _Suze, let's not go there. Don't wanna turn into a yaoi fangirl like Ella, _I told myself amused.

After three minutes of more shouting from Deidara and Tobi refusing to give him back his pants and me realizing this was the most fucked up thing I'd seen I a while, I ran out of patience. Madara had simply been observing the entire time, seeming to be half-entertained and half-annoyed by the events.

"Dei, come out already!" I said impatiently.

"Hell no! Get that idiot to give me back my pants!"

"Dei, we really don't have time for this. I swear to god I will come in and drag you out myself."

"Suzan, if you do that, I WILL blow up your PlayStation 3, yeah!"

"But senpai, I gave the other skinny jeans for you to wear so-"

"I'm not wearing those, Tobi! And so help me god I _will _kill you when I get those pants back!"

"Deidara, just put them on and come out or I swear I'll come in there." I threatened, mostly because I was, like Tobi, dying to see what he would look like in those ridiculously tight pants. There was a silence for a moment. Madara had an amused smile on his lips as he watched and stayed silent.

"You're bluffing." Deidara said, thought a little uncertain.

"Try me. I'm giving you twenty seconds." Another silence. "Twenty. Nineteen. Eighteen. Seventeen. Sixt-"

"...Dammit!" I heard him furiously change into the skinny jeans and I chuckled, eager to see how they would fit him. The countdown was over and I pulled back the curtain of the changing room, then gazed at the pants. Oh wow, they really _were _tight. Deidara shot a murderous glare in my direction, while I was trying to avoid looking at the slight bulge in the pants, then directed that glare at Tobi. Madara's lips pulled up in a sneer.

"Hmm. A reasonable size, you said?" he mocked him, obviously out to get him angry, and it worked like a charm.

"You... you shut up, you bastard! Why don't YOU try wearing it, huh?"

"No thank you. They fit you perfectly."

I only now noticed as Deidara was fuming and Madara was deriding him while Tobi watched (no doubt very much humored), that they seemed more... relaxed. Not only them, from what I heard Kakuzu wasn't all that grumpy if he was calling Ella his granddaughter and with exception of Sasuke everyone else was generally in a good mood. Hidan hadn't killed anyone ever since the incident at the mall, which was a miracle, and was acting less like a psychopath. Itachi seemed to have relaxed as well, and though still stoic towards, for example, Deidara and Hidan, the guy obviously had a gentler side.

It had even gotten to the point where Gaara and Kakashi could hang around in the living room with the Akatsuki without seeming to feel too threatened. Hell, Gaara seemed to have taken a liking to Kakuzu and Kakashi played chess now and again against whoever was willing. Tobi still grated my nerves but he hadn't tried psychological warfare on me again, and Madara wasn't_ that_ bad of a guy.

This change in behavior, obviously different from what was known in the manga, was no doubt because the Akatsuki didn't have to worry about Tailed Beasts, Kakashi and Gaara didn't have to worry about Akatsuki and Madara didn't have to worry about... whatever it was that stressed him out back in his own timeline. Probably the Senju clan. I felt sorry for them. When they returned everything would have to go back to normal. Or would it? Would they somehow change things? Would we, in the... "real" world, notice? I sighed. This was all so complicated...

But maybe I should stop thinking too hard and enjoy it while it lasted. Moments like these were fleeting and I didn't want to ruin them with my constant worrying and contemplating about things I had no control over.

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

"I'd... really appreciate it if you just told me what was bothering you." Itachi had sat down on a chair near the window, frowning at Sasuke who seemed to try his best to ignore me. I didn't understand what I'd done wrong, and since he didn't seem to want to explain, the entire situation was getting on my nerves. I tried to think back at the few times I'd spoken to him, but I couldn't seem to remember saying anything that offended him. Maybe it was something I did...?

"You're annoying. That's what's bothering me."

"Uh... okay, but why?" Sasuke stayed silent, and I looked at Itachi. I bet he'd know what was bothering him, but it would be awkward to ask him where Sasuke was present. I folded my arms, leaning against the wall next to the door. If it was something I did... what... what did I do wrong? Then I caught Sasuke glancing at Itachi, and I had an epiphany. Such an obvious one, that I wanted to slap myself for not thinking of it before. I smiled, relieved it was just something minor like that, and Sasuke eyed me suspiciously, leaning back into the bureau chair.

"What are you smirking about?" he asked distrustfully. I wondered what would be the best way to say this. I wished I had Suzan's vocabulary and astuteness, then it would be way easier, no doubt. I scratched the back of my neck and decided to just get it over with.

"You know, I have no intention of stealing Itachi from you." There was a short silence, wherein Sasuke gazed at me as if I'd just insulted his mother and Itachi blinked once, obviously my bold statement haven taken him by surprise, but then he chuckled, breaking the silence and earning a glare from Sasuke.

"Itachi has nothing to do with this." the boy snapped at me, as if daring me to prove him wrong, which is exactly what I had in mind.

"So you wouldn't be bothered if I decided to hang around him for a whole day and not let you talk to him?"

"Of course I would, but that's not... that _isn't _what annoys me about you!" he said, a tad too defensively.

"Sasuke, it's okay. You just got your brother back and I think it wasn't too long ago before... uhm, the fight happened. So I understand."

"No you don't!" he snarled at me, evidently getting angry and stopped denying it. "What do_ you_ know about anything I've been through?"

"If... one of my siblings," I said softly, staring down at my feet "or my parents somehow came back from the dead, and they didn't talk to me much, I would be frustrated as well. So I do understand, and I'm sorry if I've bothered you... it just didn't cross my mind until now." The anger, first apparent on his face, faded away as he took in my words, and he glanced from me to Itachi.

"You... lost your family?" he questioned slowly. I nodded, a sad smile on my face. It was still fresh in my memory but I'd gotten over it, mostly, as long as no one mentioned their names, or as long as I didn't look back and just tried not to think of it too much, I'd be fine.

"Just a few months ago, they died in an accident." Sasuke scowled slightly, and seemed a little uncomfortable now. Then he directed a questioning gaze at Itachi, who sighed.

"I didn't feel like I had the right to tell you." he answered his younger brother's look. Sasuke shifted a little in his seat uneasily, glancing up at my face.

"I'll try not to get in between you two from now on." I promised him cheerfully, trying to get rid of the gloomy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"That's... fine." he muttered reluctantly, seeming to be in some sort of doubt.

"Well, I'll leave you alone now. I'll call you when dinner's ready." Sasuke took a peek at Itachi, but he made no effort to stand up and follow me out of the room, which Sasuke no doubt appreciated. I walked out and shut the door behind me, but I didn't immediately leave, and incidentally caught the two brothers talking about me the moment they'd thought I was gone.

"Why is she so..."

"...Happy?" I heard a chair creek, and some footsteps. "That's just the kind of person she is."

"But how did she get past it so easily?" Sasuke questioned him, as if he simply couldn't figure it out. Of course he couldn't, he'd been obsessed with revenge and buried in hatred since day one.

"She relied on her friends for support." Itachi said, in a manner that was nonchalant but still had that suggestive tone to it. No doubt he was subtly criticizing Sasuke's decision to try and handle the pain all on his own. Proud of myself that I'd picked it up and understood it, I gave myself a mental pat on the back. That _must _have touched a sensitive string with Sasuke though. "Don't get me wrong, in the beginning she was a wreck, but we helped her pull through."

"We?" Sasuke repeated, irritation clear in his voice.

"I already told you I consider her my friend." Itachi responded calmly.

"Nothing more?" I held my breath, wondering how he'd respond to that, _if _he'd even respond to that.

"..." Which he didn't.

"Itachi..." Sasuke sounded very much annoyed, as was I because of his lack of an answer. I didn't like being left in doubt. The man was such an enigma; I wondered what it would take to get him to speak his mind completely. Even when he was drunk his lips had been sealed tight. One thing I knew for certain, was that I wouldn't be the one to get him to open up. I just couldn't figure him out, I couldn't entirely understand him, though it didn't stop me from trying. _But maybe, _a part of me told me in the back of my mind, _maybe he doesn't want to be sympathized with. Maybe... he doesn't feel like... he deserves it? _

"...I care about her." was his answer. Both me and Sasuke were frustrated. _Care? How much? He's so evasive! It's going to take another genius to figure this man out... _

"Fine, don't answer then." Sasuke mumbled displeased.

"What about you, otouto? Do you think you could give her a chance?"

"...We'll see."

"Fine. Don't answer, then." Itachi replied amused.

"She's weak."

"She's gentle. There's a difference."

I decided I'd had enough and managed to, fairly stealthily, sneak off and go downstairs. There I found Alex lazily surfing on the Internet while Hidan attempted to hit Kakuzu with the remote for something he'd no doubt said. I sighed, taking a seat next to Gaara who was simply staring at the two immortal men having another typical fight. The Kazekage glanced at me when I sat down next to him.

"Hi." I greeted him with a smile. "How's it going?" Gaara blinked.

"...Alright, I suppose." I glanced at Hidan getting smothered by a pillow with Kakuzu glaring down at him.

"They really love to go at it, huh?"

"Seems so." Gaara muttered as the two of us stared at the Akatsuki duo. Alex was sitting next to them on the couch, completely oblivious to what was going on as she seemed fully absorbed into whatever it was that she was doing on the computer.

"Mmphf!" Hidan finally managed to get the pillow off him and threw it at Kakuzu who dodged. "All I fucking asked was where Suzan was you old fart!" he screeched at the man, who narrowed his eyes, and pointed to the floor.

"Hidan!" I cried indignantly, seeing the broken plate on the floor with chocolate pudding spread all over my carpet. "Did you do that?" Hidan scratched the back of his head.

"It was an accident, jeez, I just bumped into the asshole."

"You didn't clean it up nor did you apologize." Kakuzu snarled annoyed. I stared at Kakuzu, realizing something I missed the first time around.

"You like chocolate pudding?"

Alex looked up from her laptop, glanced from me to Kakuzu and burst out into a series of high-pitched giggles.

"What's wrong with that?" he said in a threatening tone, and I quickly put up my hands, seeing as how he seemed offended. He seemed very... _very _stressed out. Being stuck in this house obviously hadn't done him much good at all, and he seemed a lot more irritable than he was in the manga. I felt sorry for him; it must be frustrating for someone with his temper to be stuck in a place with a partner he very much disliked.

"N-nothing! It was just... unexpected... Alexandria, stop laughing!" The girl shot me an angry look for using her full name before she returned to her computer work, though I just ignored it and instead I looked at Hidan. "Would you please clean it up?" I requested politely, seeing as how it was his fault to begin with. Hidan snorted.

"Don't feel like it, you go do it yourself." I pouted, but he didn't budge, that was until Kakuzu stood up with a very ominous look in his eyes, grabbed him by his hair and started dragging him to the kitchen. Gaara and I exchanged glances, stood up from our seats and quickly followed. Kakashi was sitting at the table with his book in his hand, though at the moment he was gazing at Kakuzu who was attempting to drown Hidan in the kitchen sink.

It seemed the stress that had been building up in the old man had reached it's limit.

"MMFGHRFGHR!" Hidan sputtered, his arms flailing wildly as Kakuzu held his head down in the water.

"What did he do this time?" Kakashi asked, back in his nonchalant-mode as he continued reading his book like nothing was wrong. I scowled at him, but he didn't seem particularly threatened or concerned. Had he even been thinking about what I said earlier at all? Sometimes he was so damn unreadable. Just like Itachi, now I thought about it. _Okay, this may be one of the few instances that love... well, potential love, is_ incredibly_ annoying._

"He dropped Kakuzu's pudding."

"Ah... wait, he likes pudding?"

"Not a _word,_ Hatake." Kakuzu growled, and eventually let Hidan catch his breath again, who gazed at him with a furious expression on his face.

"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT FOR?"

"For dropping my pudding." the other replied, calmly, now he'd sated his need to... er, torture his partner, I suppose.

"I DIDN'T KNOW DROPPING YOUR STUPID PUDDING COULD WARRANT YOU DROWNING ME, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!"

"I am not certain whether I should be worried or amused by this." Gaara noted dryly and I chuckled.

"Look at it this way, Kakuzu can't kill him no matter what he does." Kakashi responded, leaning back in his chair.

"Oh, but I'm not worried for Hidan's safety." Gaara replied. "I'm more worried for Kakuzu's sanity." I felt the urge to agree. One of these days Hidan was going to push him too far and Kakuzu was going to destroy the entire house in a fit of rage.

"ALRIGHT! Fine, I'll clean up your fucking pudding you goddamn money-grubbing bastard." Hidan eventually yelled in Kakuzu's face, stomping out of the kitchen. At the same time I heard a click and some yelling that was unmistakably Deidara's. Oh, they'd returned already? I glanced at Kakashi, who looked up at me and there was an awkward stare before we both looked away. This was so _utterly _frustrating. I had never had this problem before! Every single one of my previous relationships had progressed smoothly without a hitch, but only with this man... _Ugh! What _is _it with him? No one else would've... __put up a wall like that. _

Some women enjoyed the chase, loved men who were hard to get.

I was not one of those women. I folded my arms and narrowed my eyes, staring intently at him, as if I was hoping he'd just read my mind so I wouldn't have to say anything. It seemed he did, because he sighed, seeming a little disconcerted. Kakuzu, in the meantime, glanced from him to me, and instantly seem to know what was going on. He walked passed me but stopped for a brief moment to pat me on the shoulder before he left the kitchen as well, Gaara following suit as he seemed to have caught on.

"Didn't you say you'd give me some time?"

"How long do you need? You might be leaving in a few days." I replied, my patience running thin.

"You're being unfair." Kakashi then said, his tone revealing some bottled up frustration. "You expect me to spill my heart out and let you decide what to do with it." I stayed quiet for a moment.

"So?"

"So? You don't see an issue with this?" I honestly did not. It had always been that way, I generally was the dominant one in a romantic relationship. I'd just gotten used to it over time. I didn't expect... resistance. Or... someone more... dominant than I. It felt... odd. Kakashi lifted an eyebrow. "You really don't?"

"No." I answered truthfully. "I mean... I... I guess it's a little unfair, but... what's the big deal?"

"The deal," he stated sternly "is that I'm not sure that what I'm feeling is worth getting hurt over."

"Hurt?" I frowned, not getting it. "You mean... you're afraid of rejection?"

"Ella, do I really look like the kind of guy who'd get seriously depressed over something like that?"

"But then what?" I asked, cocking my head slightly to the side. Honest to God I didn't understand what he was saying. He sighed, putting his book away and standing up from his seat, the chair screeching against the wooden floor as it was shoved back. He walked over to me, just a few steps, but close enough for me to get a little nervous.

"We're all going to leave." he explained coolly. "And I'm not the kind of guy who's fine with dating a few days and breaking it off again later. If I get into something, I'm fully committed. I can't... fully commit to you, knowing I'll never see you again in just a few days."

"But... shouldn't we make the best of our time together? Why would we-" he raised his hand, gesturing for me to stay silent.

"That's not... the only thing." he declared hesitantly. "How do you feel about Itachi?" I gazed at him, my eyes widening slightly as I was completely startled by his question.

"You think, me and him...?"

"Aren't you?"

"I don't... I don't know."

"Could you be?" His voice was almost accusatory, almost angry, almost frustrated, but definitely... reluctant. He didn't really want to hear the answer, and I didn't really want to tell him, but we had to resolve this sooner or later. I bit my lip, not sure how to behave anymore as I was thrown into unfamiliar territory. I thought I knew how to play the game that was called love. I embraced it, but now I was thrown into the deep so suddenly, I didn't know what to do. This was confusing, and frustrating. Sensing my doubt, he gently lifted my chin with his finger, forcing me to look at him. "Ella, be honest." I stared into his dark eyes, feeling so lost.

"Maybe." I admitted in a small voice, and my heart sank when I saw the tiny flicker of hurt in his eyes which disappeared as soon as it came.

"I thought so." he muttered softly, letting me go and about to leave the kitchen.

"W-wait." I stopped him, grabbing his arm. "Do you... do love me?" I asked gently, my heart springing back to life again, hopeful for his answer but also nervous, when it had felt so dead just mere seconds ago. He didn't turn around to look at me.

"Do you?" he returned my question to me, his voice gone cold. It stung, more than it should have. I'd never realized how much I'd come to care. I thought... I just liked everyone, and loved the few that were so close to me. I hadn't cared to find out how deep that love went for some of them.

"I'm... I could've, if we had more... time..." I already felt heartbroken and he wasn't even leaving yet.

"Who would you've loved? Me, or Itachi?"

"Kakashi..." I groaned, not wanting to deal with being forced to choose like that. But he had the right to ask, and he knew that as he broke free from my grip. _I used to play love like a game, but this isn't... this isn't a game anymore._

"I won't try to win you over. Not like this." he decided, though I knew he hated it as much as I did.

"You never answered my question." I reminded him, feeling a lot more depressed than I expected. He looked over his shoulder to me, and the look in his eyes softened.

"I like you, a lot, and I care about you more than I should. I... do have feelings, relatively strong feelings, even but... it's not like that. Not yet. If we had more time..." He stared at the ground for a moment. "I could've loved you." It came out like a whisper, and I'd never cared to find out what "bittersweet" felt like, but now it slapped me in the face as I watched him leave the kitchen and leave me behind, as well.

_Time... all we needed was time..._

* * *

><p><strong>Gaara<strong>_  
><em>

"I do declare," Alex said to me in a weird accent that made her sound very pompous "my good sir, this bloke here on the interwebs is making the preposterous claim that my good fellow mister Stitches over there would be more than capable of kicking your arse." I stared at her, my mind completely blank as I simply waited for her to explain. Suzan rolled her eyes.

"There's no British accent in their world, dumbass." she stated lazily, Hidan's head resting on her lap as she was braiding his hair since he'd fallen asleep.

"Oh shut up, ya totally ruined my joke."

"How is talking in an accent no one understands a joke?" Sasuke asked with a slight frown, sitting next to his two other relatives on the couch. He seemed a lot more... sane. I figured it had to be his brother's influence, though I was worried what would happen when we returned. Meanwhile, Alex stuck out her tongue at him.

"Fine, bunch of killjoys... ah, well, let's see if I can find an interesting one." She'd been doing this for a while now. Everyone was bored so we decided to play a little... game, if you could call it that. Mainly just setting up matches between two people and discussing who'd win or lose. "Uh... what about... Sasuke... versus... Naruto?"

"Ugh!" Suzan exclaimed. "You are _so _unoriginal!"

"Well, one of you come up with one then!" Alex snapped grumpily, folding her arms and pouting like a child. I sighed.

"What about... Tsunade versus... er... Okay, I got nothing."

"How about we play... a game... of... er... spin the bottle?"

"No."

"Seven minutes in Heaven?"

"NO! No one is kissing anyone tonight!"

"Fine... killjoy. Oh! How about... truth or dare?" Suzan gazed at Alex with a frown.

"You're joking. That is the most cliché game of all cliché games ever created."

"Well, everyone else is sick of the PS3 and no one wants to play Monopoly again since Kakuzu pretty much beats us every time. So unless you have a better idea...?"

"What the heck is... ooooh, _that _game?" Deidara said, eyes widening in realization. "I haven't played that in years."

"Tch, children's game." Sasuke snorted.

"Tobi wants to play!" the masked man said, raising his hand immediately. I too remembered this game. Though I myself had never taken part, other kids used to play it a lot. I used to be jealous of them, until I found out the ridiculous dares and questions participants were asked. Of course you could always lie when you got Truth, but Dare was another matter entirely. I leaned back in my seat, wondering how this game would go with all the S-ranked criminals and deadly shinobi gathered into one place. Actually, I was rather interested in partaking myself. I'd never gotten the chance. It felt... nice, to be part of something like a circle of friends, though this wasn't exactly that. In fact, this was the strangest group I'd ever been in.

"Sasuke, are you gonna chicken out?" Suzan pestered the younger boy, obviously harboring some great dislike towards him as she seemed to enjoy insulting him. Though Suzan was a lot more loud and lively than Sasuke, I could see some similarities between them. Small ones. Like the way they glared, or the way they talked. It was highly amusing.

"I never said anything about chickening out." Sasuke sneered. At the same time Hidan finally woke up and Ella came back from the kitchen, seeming a little troubled. She sat down on the arm of Suzan's favorite armchair, which was being occupied by Deidara.

"What are you guys doing?" she asked curiously, though the usual playful glistening in her eyes was gone. Her little chat with Kakashi must've been... painful. The man himself knew how to hide it perfectly, though.

"We're gonna play Truth or Dare! Care to join?" Alex asked, and Ella smiled, though it was entirely and definitely fake.

"Sure."

"Alright, everyone is in?"

"I'm out."

"Count me out as well."

"Not interested." The rest of us looked at Kakashi, Kakuzu and Madara who'd bluntly refused.

"Why, yeah?" Deidara asked with a scowl before anyone else could.

"I'd much rather sit back and watch you embarrass yourselves." Kakashi said with a shrug.

"Aw, come on gramps, are you chicken too?" Suzan whined, earning a death glare from Kakuzu which made her shut up instantly.

"Don't call me that, brat." he huffed. "I'm not about to waste my time on your little games." Suzan turned to Madara.

"You chicken too?" He stared at her for a few seconds, then just... blatantly looked the other way and ignored her. Not even a standard Uchiha "Hn" came out of his mouth. She pouted, as did Alex and Ella (what was it with those girls and pouting?).

"Oh, come on! Pretty please? It'll be fun!" Ella tried to persuade him. He raised his eyebrows at her.

"It had _better _be." The redhaired girl blinked several times, flustered as she tried to figure out whether he was seriously threatening her or not. For a split-second I swear I saw a smile creep up on his lips but it was gone again before I knew. "...Fine."

"Yay! I start, it was my idea!" Suzan groaned as Alex smiled happily.

"You realize this game has been done to death, right?"

"Yeah well, our lives are already cliché at this point. I mean really, a bunch of ninja dropping into our house?"

"...Yeah. Sounds like a badly written fanfiction."

"Can we get on with the fucking game?" Hidan complained, and Alex chucked a pillow at his head. "Oi! I've had enough of these fucking pillows!" he complained loudly. I sighed, leaning back in my chair and wondered if we'd even get through the night. Alex first explained the game quickly for some who didn't know how to play it. It was incredibly easy to understand. Then, she looked around, to pick her... victim. I couldn't really call it anything else. The malicious look in her eyes was quite foreboding of ill things yet to come.

"Alex, let me go first." Suzan said suddenly. Alex frowned.

"Why?"

"Because I wanna. Come on..."

"Fine, fine. You can go first."

"Okay... Madara, Truth or Dare?" she said instantly with a wide smirk, obviously having planned something for him. Madara narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Truth." he responded coolly.

"Tell me any fetishes you have and why you have them."

"...Fetishes."

"Yeah. Like... in bed? You know, some guys have a fetish for women's feet-"

"I _know _what a fetish is." Madara interrupted her impatiently. He didn't seem too pleased about this question, but it could've been worse. He stayed silent, thinking for a moment. "Women with long hair." he eventually said. Well, that wasn't too odd of a fetish. It could've been way worse. Or he could be lying... but he seemed dead serious.

"What's... long to you?" Alex asked curiously.

"At least waist-length." Well, none of the girls had hair that long. Ella seemed most amused by this, and no doubt Alex was going to try and play match-maker for the Uchiha as well later on.

"Does color matter? Or whether it's thin, or thick, or curly, or straight..."

"You seriously want me to get into specifics?" Suzan nodded her head heavily and I imagined her having a notepad to scribble down notes as she listened attentively. Madara sighed, getting frustrated.

"Dark colored, thick, curly. Is that all?"

"And... why this fetish?" Suzan continued to question. Madara sent a nasty glare at her, crossing his arms as if he wanted to refuse to answer. "Lemme guess, you like to... pull the hair when you're having an orgasm?" There was an immediate silence until Ella suddenly burst into giggles, as did a few others. I was just wondering what would happen next. Sasuke, sitting right next to him, snorted a laugh but then quickly straightened his face when Madara shot him an annoyed glance. Itachi didn't even bother hiding his amusement, though he wasn't entirely smiling, he certainly seemed entertained.

"...Hn." Madara _really _didn't seem to want to answer.

"Is that a yes?"

"...Yes." he grudgingly admitted. "Brat. Your turn." he turned to look at Alex, who gulped, as the man was no doubt planning to take out his frustration on someone.

"Truth." she wisely chose. Madara was silent for a moment.

"Who's the last person you undressed in your thoughts?"

"Wow, wow, wow, WOW! What the hell!" Alex said embarrassed, cheeks heating up immediately. Madara was amused.

"Answer the question."

"You, sir, are an ass." she snarled at him, the blush still not gone from her face. I suppressed a chuckle, though I really didn't need to know the answer, it was funny seeing her embarrassed like this. Suzan, Deidara and Hidan seemed to be thinking the same thing. "W-well... uh... BEFORE any of you say anything, this was a dream, alright! I wasn't purposely thinking about it." Madara nodded, gesturing her to go on. "...Sasuke."

Sasuke nearly choked on his soda and coughed a few times before gazing at her, rather startled. I myself was even more shocked. Sasuke? She'd been... well, let's not summon _that _mental image. But he didn't... seem like her type much at all.

"Alex! My god, you really ARE an Uchiha fangirl!" Suzan said disgusted.

"What is it with teenage girls and Sasuke?" Kakashi wondered aloud.

"Beats me, yeah." Deidara responded dryly.

"No, wait, listen!" Alex attempted to clarify. "It was a dream, and he was a pole-dancing _stripper_!"

This time, I'm positive Sasuke did choke on his soda. Itachi slapped him on the back a few times, looking almost half-disturbed and half-amused. Madara was just rubbing his forehead at this point, no doubt not appreciating that tidbit of information and regretting he'd ever asked. Suzan, on the other hand, was laughing so hard she was crying.

"What kind of sick dreams do you have?" the youngest Uchiha snarled at her.

"Hey, I was disturbed too, alright! It's not like I can control what I see! Besides, with that white outfit Orochimaru gave you? Yeah, totally looked like a stripper-"

"A-Alex, s-stop... can't... breathe!" Suzan choked out, falling off the couch in her wild fit of laughter. "Oh... oh my _ribs! _I'm g-gonna die!" Deidara was roaring with her, as was Hidan. Kakuzu was pertrubed, Kakashi looked like he really couldn't care less about the situation and focused on his book. Sasuke was the most disturbed out of all of us, and also fuming with anger, though Itachi patted him on the shoulder.

"Cool down, it's just a game."

It took a well-counted fifteen minutes before everyone was calm again. I just couldn't believe this was actually happening. Even though some of us were supposed to be complete enemies, we were acting like... a group of friends. Severely dysfunctional friends, but still, it was... friendly. It was fun. I just wished things could be like this when we returned. Spending a night, playing a fun game without a care in the world...

"I pick... Deidara! Truth or Dare?"

"...Truth." Alex pouted.

"Aw, no fun! Fine. Uhm... Did you ever... use those mouths on your hands to give yourself a blowj-"

"HELL NO!" Deidara screeched disgustedly while Hidan fell off the couch as he laughed. The three Uchiha were completely indifferent (save for the slightly disgusted look on Sasuke's face), Kakuzu sighed deeply, Kakashi looked like he was trying to choose between laughing or being disgusted and Suzan and Ella were openly chuckling. I was... just... disturbed. That was something I hadn't thought of before and certainly didn't want to think of ever. Again.

"Jeez, calm down..." Alex said teasingly. Deidara glared hellfire at her, then coughed, before looking around the circle. Tobi flailing his arms in the background begging to be chosen.

"...Hidan, Truth or Dare." The Jashinist stopped laughing to look up at him and smirk.

"Dare me, bitch."

"Kiss Kakuzu's feet."

"...OH MY GOD, DEIDARA, YOU EVIL GENIUS!" Suzan exclaimed in euphoria as everyone (yes, even the three Uchiha) seemed at least slightly amused while Hidan looked mortified.

"You're fucking KIDDING me!" he looked at Kakuzu, who seemed to not care for one bit, though I was certain he was enjoying this. Hidan turned to his girlfriend. "YOU TRAITOR!" Suzan giggled.

"Oh, come on, it's not _that _bad." she tried to soothe him, though that miserably failed, considering she had a huge grin on her face. Hidan fumed, but then very reluctantly looked at Kakuzu's feet.

"Jashin dammit." he cursed softly. "Fine, I'll get this shit over with, and not a WORD!"

I cannot tell you how priceless this moment was because even if I precisely described the humiliating way Hidan got down on his knees and lowered his head in front of an infinitely satisifed Kakuzu, your imagination still wouldn't do it enough justice. Hidan stared down at the feet for a while, obviously not happy about this.

"Just do it already!" Alex egged him on. The immortal man took a deep breath (had Kakuzu been a lesser man he would've squealed in glee and laughed in Hidan's face) and quickly kissed both feet, then making a sprint to the kitchen to no doubt wash his mouth with soap.

"I got it on camera!" Suzan said triumphantly, holding up a phone, which (somehow) had a camera built into it. How they'd managed that was beyond me. By the time Hidan got back everyone had studied the picture Suzan had taken and we all had it ingrained into our memories from now on. Hidan looked like he wanted to torture something. Mainly, Deidara.

"You... you just wait, you blond she-male... Tobi! Truth or Dare! And you'd better pick Dare, motherfucker!" Deidara's huge cheshire grin faded away instantly. Tobi was nearly jumping up and down in excitement. To say it was disturbing wouldn't cut it.

"Dare, then! Dare!"

"Goddammit, Tobi..." Deidara huffed.

"I dare you... to grab Deidara's arm, and not letting it go for the rest of the night. Even if the fucker wants to sleep."

"FUCK YOU!"

"Okay!" Tobi said happily.

"NO! Stay the fuck away from me, yeah!" But alas, Tobi was faster and before Deidara could react, his arm was glomped by the masked man who giggled like a little kid. "SCREW YOU, HIDAN!" Hidan merely roared with laughter, not even responding to him as he sat back down next to Suzan, pulling her against him with an arm around her shoulders. She didn't seem entirely comfortable, though not bothered either.

"Oh, Tobi's turn!" the masked man said _way _too happy for my liking. "Tobi... chooses... itachi-san!" Itachi looked up at Tobi, the amused expression fading from his face. He contemplated his options, no doubt.

"Dare." he said to most people's surprise. I suppose Tobi's strongest point _was _messing with other people's minds. Even in this company you couldn't count on him not to try to mess with your head with his words.

"Okay, uh... how about... uhm..." After almost a whole minute of thinking on Tobi's part (exaggerated thinking) Deidara leaned over and whispered something in his ear. "Great idea, senpaI! Tobi dares Itachi-san to put ice cubes in his underwear for a whole minute!"

"Oh, ouch! Come on, that's... just ouch." Suzan said, shaking her head. Ella frowned, obviously not approving. I finally felt the urge to speak up.

"That is just_ too_ cruel." I noted, though I was glad I wasn't in Itachi's shoes. Sasuke glared at the masked man and the blond, but Itachi kept a perfectly straight face, walked to the kitchen, came back after a while, and from the sound coming from his pants, he'd actually done it. I gazed at him in awe, wondering how he could look so calm with those ice cubes... against his... manhood? Wouldn't that... feel just horrible? But when he sat down we all saw him bite his lip and clutch the fabric of his pants. Aha. So not even Itachi Uchiha was strong enough to resist something like that.

"Are you... okay?" Sasuke asked slowly, looking very disturbed.

"F... fine..." Itachi responded in a relatively calm voice, though still no doubt _highly_ uncomfortable.

"Jeez... Dei, that was a really evil dare, man." Suzan said, pitying the Uchiha. Deidra shrugged with a smirk. "Freaking sadist." He glared and threw a pillow at her, which she dodged. We all just stared at Itachi, and Tobi started counting down from twenty seconds.

"Y...you can stop doing that..." Itachi said with a light cough when Tobi reached fifteen.

"Huh?" Tobi questioned, cocking his head to the side.

"The ice cubes melted." Kakashi said lazily, not looking up once from his book.

"My god, Dei, your horrible, horrible person." Suzan shook her head, and Alex sighed, shaking her head along with her.

"Hey, Tobi gave the dare, why don't you scold at him, yeah!"

"I think it's a generally known fact Tobi is a huge pain in the ass, but we didn't expect this cruelty from _you_!" Itachi, very slowly, stood up, and trudged towards the stairs, no doubt to change his pants. His fingers twitched, probably trying to resist the urge to clutch his abused crotch. It was quite a sight to see. Another memorable moment that came out of this night. The moment Itachi left, Ella scolded Deidara even more harshly than Suzan, though she didn't use any nasty words, she did give him quite a long lecture about it (with Deidara occasionally yelling "He agreed to it!" to which Ella responded "He has honor! Something you obviously seem to lack! I'm _so _disappointed in you, Dei..."). Not to mention the killing glares Sasuke sent Deidara's way, as he seemed like he was plotting to murder him in his sleep.

Madara seemed largely apathetic to the whole thing, though he'd been rather entertained in general. Kakuzu had about the same mood, though he was way more apathetic about it. Kakashi was busy with his book, though obviously observing as well and I heard a chuckle escape from his lips every now and then. Deidara, Hidan, Suzan and Alex seemed to all have a huge blast with this. I was quite amused, but more... shocked by the fact how... comfortable I seemed to feel around these people now. These were criminals. One of them had _killed _me. I guess I completely avoided Deidara, though, so that probably helped creating a nice atmosphere.

It was just so... so odd. These three girls had brought us together. Well, technically the Goddess had, but still. It was so... strange how we all seemed to at least get along a little (save for Kakuzu and Hidan but that seemed to be normal interaction for those two). Suzan and Hidan especially seemed to get along _great_. I watched her completely relaxed in his arms as she leaned her head on his chest, snuggling close to him. She knew exactly what he was, what he'd done. Yet she didn't seem to care. Probably because we weren't in that world anymore, that world where murder was quite common and children were being trained to kill from such a young age.

It was... bittersweet. Now, we could still enjoy our time here.

But once we returned...

"Did you see that?" A low whisper from Sasuke caught my attention.

"Of course." Madara replied quietly. The others were too busy talking to notice. I, however, did notice. I saw Sasuke glancing at a window and quickly followed his look. There were dark shadows outside, as it was quite late already, but for a second there I saw one of the shadows move, a little too... unnatural for a mere shadow. _Is that... a person?_

Someone was outside.

We were being watched, but by who?

* * *

><p><strong>Aaaand, here it ends!<strong>

**CLIFFHANGERS! MUWAHAHAHA!  
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**Okay guys, gotta be honest with you, I need to do something different before this gets boring. I mean I love this story and I'm totally going to complete it and its sequel, but... I need to switch it up a little every now and then, you know? I'm getting a little exhausted with all this AIMH stuff. **

**So, if you want to request any one-shots, put it as a little P.S. in your review or PM me. Can be about whatever you like. Really. Boy/boy, girl/girl, boy/girl, boy/plant/ girl/lamp... Can be any pairing and any genre, from horror to pure smut, and it can be about _any_ Naruto character, including my OCs. but yeah, it's all up to you. I will put all the different one-shots into one giant story, let's say, "Cloud's Ridiculously Awesome One-shots" xD  
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**Don't worry, I won't neglect this story, but I just... want something else to write for a change. I mean damn, I'm even starting to have dreams about Suzan at this point, and it's getting exhausting :P  
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**ANYWAYZ. So like I said, this chapter was just... I don't know, me writing what I feel like.  
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**I guess.  
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**Yeah well... uhm...  
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**BIG THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO REVIEWED/PUT IT ON STORY ALERT/FAVED!  
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**It's like 2:00 in the morning so I'm too tired to write down all of your names, forgive me, but I seriously need to get some sleep now.  
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**Oh, and if the second half of this chapter contains huge typos, just know that Cloud was an imbecile and has a sleep-deprivation fetish. Way worse than Madara's, I'm telling you.  
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**MUCH LOVE!  
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**See ya next time! :D  
><strong>


	27. Nearing the end

**Naruto Chapter 599**

**HOW. WHAT. I DON'T EVEN.**

**How, Kishi, **_**how **_**do you expect me to write this shit when just… and I just… and this… and… and…**

***sits in a corner and cries her heart out***

**WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY ?!**

**I'VE BEEN LIVING A LIE ALL THIS TIME! T_T**

***cough* Now that **_**that**_** trauma has been taken care of….**

**So, I've been absent for quite some time. Well, summer came along, and you see, I decided to take a break, from this story at least. Writing twenty-six chapters back to back can… drain your inspiration, if you know what I mean. So, I kind of got tired of Naruto and turned to other manga and anime such as One Piece and Claymore, to name a few. More specifically, I got tired of the Akatsuki thing for a long while, ehehe.**

**So I've written some other stories 'cause I wanted to do something different. **

**But now I'm back and it's time to finish it up!**

**And you all have the latest Naruto Chapter to thank for this surge of inspiration or you would've had to wait for this upload until next Friday U_U**

**Enjoy plz :D**

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><p><strong>Alex<strong>

So, then this had turned into quite the night. I mean, I'd been expecting crazy shit like this from the very beginning but all of it, all of this, the pleasantries, the humor, the bonding moments – who could honestly say they once shared a house with deadly ninjas, had had arguments with some of them, had made friends with some of them? Truth or Dare had been a fun game to play. But it hadn't been _just _a fun game. It took our minds off things, of the inevitable battle to come, and then they'd all be sent back to their world filled with strife and conflict that would tear some of them apart. It was in the atmosphere around us, we all knew there wasn't much time left. Maybe a few days? Maybe less? It was depressing and looming over us like a dark cloud, and while I knew I'd definitely miss them all, I knew that Ella and Suzan were going to have a much harder time accepting it. Suzan, heads over heals fallen in love with a complete lunatic, and Ella, torn in between her longing and her fear of being hurt.

All of this because some magical hag couldn't get over her own ego. I watched as suddenly Madara decided to stand up and leave the room, walking to the kitchen. No questions asked, of course. The others continued chatting; Hidan and Deidara arguing as usual, Suzan having a light conversation with Kakashi who didn't seem interested much, and the others doing as they pleased. Either sitting in comfortable silence and listening to the conversations going on or adding a remark every now and then. I glanced at the other two Uchiha who seemed a little more… alert. Okay, those guys must've seen something that the rest of us hadn't. Though when I looked around, I saw Kakashi was slightly more tense, as were Kakuzu and Gaara. I stood up from my seat.

"Where are you going?" Suzan asked, lazily leaning against Hidan who was giving the middle finger to Deidara for some reason.

"Bathroom." I lied, and followed Madara to the kitchen. What was he up to?

'_Maybe he wants to take a swim in the pool?'_

I wanted to smack myself for that thought. Since when did _Madara _ever do anything fun except mock people and kick ass at chess? Besides, he didn't even have swimming trunks. Though I supposed he could always go skinny dip-

Stop. That. Thought. RIGHT THERE.

So after that nosebleed-worthy mental image, I continued following him. Either he didn't notice (Ha! As if!) or he just didn't give a damn. Thus I decided to drop the _trying-to-be-sneaky_-act all together, which had been retarded anyway. Like sneaking up on a ninja would ever work. I skipped over to his side just as he was about to open the backdoor.

"Whatcha doing?" I asked cheerfully. He spared me a glance and then decided to ignore me, apparently, opening the door and walking outside into the backyard. "You know, showing some human emotion won't kill you. I mean… trying never hurt anyone. So far. Maybe it's poison for Uchiha?" I ranted as I followed him outside and watched him look around, as if scanning the area for something. For a second, he stiffened, then his shoulders relaxed.

"So that's what it is." I heard him mutter to himself. I frowned mildly.

"Don't tell me you turned schizophrenic?!" I exclaimed dramatically, being utterly bored at the moment. "No! Don't listen to the voices in your head! They speak _lies_! Don't go towards the light!" Madara turned around to face me, his eyebrows raised, half in disbelief and half in irritation.

"Are you sure _you're _not the mentally insane one?"

"Ooooh!" I gasped, pointing at his face. "IT SPEAKS!"

Madara stared at me for a few seconds, as if he were staring at a circus clown balancing an apple-pie on her nose (what a random analogy that was), and then proceeded to walk off towards the bushes.

"Hey, I was just joking! Where are you going?" I yelled after him. "If you need to take a leak we have a toilet inside! You know, _civilization_!"

I think he just gave up on my sanity at that point, or he was just very distracted by something else that was probably a lot more important than I was at the moment.

"So that's what it is." I heard him mumble. "Quite morbid." Curiosity got the better of me and I walked over to him, following his gaze which was fixated on a row of wild bushes with dark leafs. I was about to ask what the hell he was staring at when I saw movement. Something white flashed between the bushes for a second and rustled the leafs.

"What was that?" I asked anxiously. Madara gave me a sideways glance, looking as if he wanted to ignore me again, but then his eyes narrowed slightly.

"Why don't you go see for yourself?" he responded casually. I scowled at him, but decided that hey, this guy wasn't a sadistic psychopath, so whatever was in there probably wasn't dangerous. Right? Or maybe this was part of his evil master plan of getting rid of me. Actually, no, that sounded more like something Tobi would do, minus the brutal murder via unknown entity part. I decided a quick peek couldn't hurt, so I slowly walked over to the bushes. My heartbeat sped up, and as I neared the place where… _whatever_ was hiding, I got a lot more nervous. I glanced over to Madara over my shoulder, but he was simply watching me, a hint of impatience in his eyes. I looked back at the two bushes and leaned over, when out of nowhere, two white things shot out and grasped my arms.

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, realizing the things that were grabbing my arms were the hands of a fucking _skeleton, _as the thing came into complete view out of its hiding place, and I swear to god I had a heart-attack and my soul escaped through my mouth and went to heaven as I kept screaming, furiously trying to shake the skeleton off me. I tripped over my own feet and fell on the ground, and only when I heard a soft chuckle behind me did I snap out of my shocked state. "What the…." I gazed up at the skeleton. It wasn't doing anything. It was just standing there and staring at me. I was breathing heavily and turned around to look at Madara, who was wearing an amused smirk on his face.

"Well? Is your curiosity sated?" he asked as several people were rushing out the house by now, since we could both hear their footsteps.

"You're a FUCKING ASSHOLE!" I screeched at him, hurryingly scrambling up and taking my distance from the oddity in front of me. "But what the fuck is a skeleton doing here?! Is this one of Hecate's sick jokes or something?" Its mouth opened.

"_Master…._"

"HOLY FUCK, IT TALKS!" Madara shot me an annoyed glare as I was hiding behind him.

"Don't scream into my ear." he warned, looking back at the skeleton. I, meanwhile, turned around to see Hidan, Deidara, Kakashi and Gaara walking towards us. Ella was standing in the doorway of the backdoor that led to the kitchen, watching from a distance, and Suzan was following the guys, though she was a few steps behind; probably in case there was danger. The rest had apparently decided to stay inside.

"Alex? What's the – what the _fuck_?!" Hidan blurted out when he saw the skeleton.

"Look, Hidan! It's your long lost brother, yeah." Deidara sneered, and the immortal man glowered fiercely at him.

"Shut up, pig-tail!" he snapped.

"A… a skeleton…?" Kakashi said, mildly surprised. "Well, at least this is pretty tame compared to what usually happens." he decided with a sigh, and Madara raised his eyebrows.

"What does usually happen?" he question curiously.

"People get turned into animals, bodies get switched, portals to other universes; that kind of stuff." Kakashi said dryly, as if it was a daily occurrence. Madara stared at him for a second longer.

"I see."

"How the hell are you so calm about this?" I asked, still annoyed that he'd played such a nasty prank on me.

"Would having a psychotic episode like you accomplish anything?"

"Er… no, I suppose not, but-"

"Then there's your answer."

"Hidan, stop that!" Suzan snapped (having approached us by now), sounding a little unnerved, drawing my attention back to the skeleton. Hidan continually poked its forehead, watching the skull of the skeleton bob back and forth, until Suzan had berated him for it, and now he was just frowning at her and _almost _pouting.

"_Master… master has-" _the skeleton hissed at Hidan, attempting to communicate.

"Eh? Master? I ain't your master."

"Shut up and let the thing talk, yeah." Deidara snapped at him. I sighed and made sure to be standing behind Hidan and Deidara as they were now closest to the skeleton.

"_Master has a gift for you." _the skeleton now finally spoke completely uninterrupted. Though I don't know how you could call it speaking as its mouth didn't really move; it was just hanging open the entire time.

"I'm assuming he means Hades." Suzan huffed, seeming to be skeptical. A gift from Hades? That couldn't be a bad thing, could it? Sure, the guy was ominous and all that, but _someone _had to take care of the dead people, and it wasn't exactly a cheery job so who could blame him for looking like a Greek version of Darth Vader? We watched the skeleton lean back into the bushes, pulling out something long and skinny.

It was a sword.

How generic.

"_The traitor… you can weaken the traitor with this. Do not kill her! The Heavens won't like it if you kill her!" _The skeleton completely ignored Deidara and Hidan, and presented the sword to Madara, who looked it over with a slight frown. It was a double-edged sword with a crimson colored handle, which had a silver chain attached to it. The blade itself was silver as well, but it had something engraved in it in red letters. Madara stared at the inscription. Gaara stared at the inscription as well, as Madara was holding the rather long blade up.

"Deicide." the Kazekage read up aloud.

"The killing of a deity. Why give us a God-slaying sword if you don't want us to kill her? Why not some rope?" Kakashi suggested randomly, making me wondering whether he was joking or not. The skeleton opened its clenched hand (I hadn't even noticed he'd been clenching it) and revealed a glass vial which seemed to be filled with blood.

"_The blade and the vial holds Master's blood. The blood in the vial, you must put it on your weapons if you wish to defeat her. Only a deity can harm or kill another deity – that is what the blood is for. But do not kill her! The Heavens won't-"_

"Yeah, yeah, they'll get pissed, we get it." Deidara interrupted it annoyed. "I guess putting blood inside a rope wouldn't be practical, yeah. Though a few more weapons could've helped, ya know."

"And why the hell does he get the sword?!" Hidan complained, pointing at the legendary Uchiha. "I know how to handle sharp and pointy things! I have a damn scythe!"

"So did I." Madara responded coolly, and Hidan glared at him.

"Oh yeah? Mine had three blades!" he jeered at the Uchiha, who didn't seem fazed in the least.

"Overcompensation." he responded simply, and Hidan looked like he wanted to strangle him. Deidara punched his shoulder.

"Don't be an idiot!"

While those two started to go at it again, the rest of us looked back at the skeleton. "Why did you sneak around the house instead of… simply knocking?" Gaara asked it. The skeleton stayed silent, its jaws clenched together.

"Answer the question, Skully." I said, folding my arms with a serious expression, trying to have a tough attitude towards it, but then Suzan had to go and ruin it by snorting a laugh.

"Skully?"

"Shut up!"

"_There were… too many… people…." _It then spoke slowly, and in a tiny voice, barely audible over the noise of two loudmouthed hotheads screaming at each other in the background. For a few seconds none of us were sure how to respond to that.

"A shy skeleton." Kakashi stated, scratching the back of his head. "That's… that's a new one."

"Aw, that's so cute! Can we keep him as a pet? Alex already has a name for him, right, Skully?" Suzan cooed sardonically at the skeleton, and I fought the urge to throw the nearest stick at her head, and instead settled on glaring at her.

"That's not funny!"

"Oh, I beg to differ."

"Hidan? Wasn't your dare to Tobi that he'd never have to let go of Deidara's arm for the rest of the night?" Kakashi remarked completely casually.

What followed was a shit storm or cuss words.

"TOBI! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!"

"Well, your job here is done. You can go back to your Master now." Gaara said with a nod, completely ignoring Hidan who was running back into the house like a furious bull. Ella stepped aside as he ran past her, looking quite startled. I sighed and looked from Gaara, to Kakashi to Madara, and all three of them didn't even seem to wonder how the hell this was possible and were completely calm. I wasn't even gonna bother looking at Suzan since she was still snickering at me over the skeleton's nickname. The skeleton bowed – _'What the hell?' _– and retreated back into the bushes, leaving no trace.

So now we actually had a means to defeat her.

Wait, that meant… that meant it wouldn't be long before she showed up, would it?

Well, fuck.

* * *

><p><strong>Hecate<strong>

I didn't know _what _I was doing anymore.

There was no place for me among the other Gods and Goddesses, that much was clear, and maybe it was partially my own fault. Maybe I'd just crossed a line or three, and maybe it had been foolish, but to think Hades would go as far as to – no. No, he had to be bluffing. But what if he wasn't? What if my life really _was _at stake here? Over the past years I hadn't had much interactions with the others, and now it had left me as a paranoid wreck.

I didn't feel guilty for the humans I'd killed for my own enjoyment – my revenge. It was their own fault. Such measly, pathetic creatures, forgetting about _me_? The one who'd always granted their wishes in the past? They'd slandered me, degraded me to a mere _witch_. I used to be glorious, once. A shining example of what all Goddesses were supposed to be – just, beautiful and elegant. But then these humans _destroyed _everything with their outrageous fairy tales. I was a laughing stock, my reputation ruined – in their eyes I had once been a beautiful young woman, but then they twisted and turned me into an old, ugly hag brewing some sort of magical concoction in a black cauldron. How could these mere ants do this to me and get away with it? Where was _their _punishment for slandering my name, for their blasphemy? Did I not deserve something better than being ridiculed and forgotten?

So for the past years I'd settled on revenge, but like all things, revenge got boring after a while. I got tired of it sought for a challenge. Any prideful human who thought of himself as intelligent would do – and so I encountered this girl, who seemed to think she knew better than anyone else. An _atheist_. It infuriated me. People like her were the reason why I was in such a miserable state; complete non-believers, worse than the others, the modern theists, who at least believed in _something_, even if it was misguided. I despised those atheists the most, every single one of them, and that was the main reason I'd chosen her when I'd been wandering around the town which I'd randomly picked.

No, she was not a "chosen one". There was no prophecy about her, and she was not special in any kind of way, save for the fact that her atheism made her stick out like a sore thumb. She just happened to be the one I noticed. It could've been any other non-believer. It could've been a christian, a muslim, a jew – it didn't matter. As long as they didn't worship me like they ought to. But Suzan was particularly infuriating with her atheism; a stubborn human, and passionate, gifted with a sharp tongue. So I chose her because I figured it would be entertaining – I was wondering what she would do with her wishes.

Then that _other_ girl turned everything around. This other girl, Ella, seemed to be almost a polar opposite to Suzan. She was kind, peaceful, romantic, and not all that bright. It greatly amused me at first. Out of all the things to wish for – riches, immortality, love – she wished to meet some characters out of a story!

These characters, they were… _interesting._ Some of them, at least. In the beginning they had all seemed to be from the same little organization. I read up on them; they came from a story created by a Japanese artist. Their world was one of ninjas, and in that world, they appeared to be the villains. Why Ella had summoned them instead of the protagonists was beyond me, but I supposed she'd made the wish in jest.

The loudmouthed bomber, the puppet man and their leader – these people had not intrigued me much. One was terribly simplistic, the other strangely obsessed with his puppetry, and the leader was under the illusion that he could create peace through violence. Of course he did not understand that such a thing as peace could not be forced through fear nor through dictatorship – resistance would always be inevitable. Humans were stubborn like that.

Take the little foxy girl for example. There was no doubt in my mind she wouldn't bow down to a dictator, much like Suzan – both of them were too strong-willed. Suzan would, from what I could tell, even go as far as to rather die fighting a tyrant instead of submitting to him. Despite her high intellect her fiery emotions got in the way of her better judgment on a regular basis. The foxy girl wouldn't be that bold nor reckless, she would probably find a subtle manner to sabotage the tyrant's plans. Ella wasn't as brave. She was the more timid and sensitive one, after all, and she'd much rather cling to life instead of risking it on what could quite possibly be a fool's errand. These three girls had formed an unusual bond with the rest of the characters from the other world, whom I'd carefully categorized.

There were the _slightly_ interesting characters. Take for example the man with five hearts and his partner, who seemed to be impervious to _any _physical injuries or severing of limbs, including his head. No, he was not truly immortal – he would still die if he did not eat. There was also the good child who had been chosen to lead an entire village. Interesting choice, and though he was indeed remarkably talented, he still seemed too young to me.

In contrast to him, there was the confused child. Ah yes, he was _very _confused with himself and in constant turmoil. No doubt this was because of his older brother's actions in the past, who seemed to have such an intense, rooted fear for war that he had gone as far as to kill his entire family and clan, save for his younger brother. I'd wondered what it was with that clan, considering their ancestor had also had an unfortunate past. Or maybe I shouldn't question _them _but their creator who seemed to have a thing for writing brother complexes and a fetish for eyes, apparently.

Then there were two masked men. One of them a prominent protagonist in the story. The other, not so much. The man who called himself Tobi seemed to think he could solve all the world's problems by brainwashing them. What was the point? Why deny everyone free will and their basic human nature? It wasn't going to last forever; nothing did. In the end it was just another futile effort to seek an unobtainable peace; war and violence was a part of humans. It was simply how the world worked – it was what we had intended for them, otherwise we would have made humans timid and soft creatures. But no, we created them in our own image, for our own entertainment.

He would simply have to deal with the fact that losses, the horrors of war and sorrow were as much a part of life as happiness, love and joy were. Trying to erase one side was impossible. It would be like trying to erase one side of the same coin. You'd have to destroy the entire coin for it to work.

And so of course, all these people were prideful, stubborn, passionate – they would not so willingly give in to me.

I decided to play their little game.

Then they _challenged_ me.

So perhaps I was arrogant, because I couldn't believe – it was utterly laughable – that a group of mortals thought they could stand a chance against a _Goddess_.

Then Hades meddled, and I realized this was no longer a game. This was about my _status _now, my _powers_. They had weakened over the years, but I was still very powerful, and now they aimed to take that away from me as well, together with my immortality.

First my pride, now my _entire being_. They wanted to turn me into one of those wretched humans; they wanted to take away the only thing I'd ever known.

I wasn't going to let them. They wouldn't get away with this. And I no longer had a choice, did I?

I would get to them before they got to me – I would kill those mortals, and then I would defeat Hades and prove how much power I still possessed. There was no way the other Gods and Goddesses could deny me any longer then, could still _ridicule _me then.

I stood up from the ground, as I'd been sitting on the grass for a long time. I looked down at the small lake in front of me, surrounded by slender, tall trees, the moon just barely shining through the many leafs as they rustled with the wind – an owl hooting in the distance.

I would prove to them, to _all of them_, that I was still worthy of the title of a Goddess.

* * *

><p><strong>Hidan<strong>

"Where the hell were you guys?!" Deidara exclaimed while having Tobi in a headlock when we were back inside, in the kitchen. To prevent Tobi from clinging to his arm the terrorist had decided to hold him instead, which was totally cheating but by now I was too distracted to give a fuck. Ella was making some coffee for everyone as it seemed like no one was planning to sleep tonight. Well, I sure as hell wasn't. Itachi was sitting at the table together with Kakuzu, and his emo brat of a brother was leaning against the wall next to the door. Gaara and Kakashi decided to sit as well, but the rest of us were fine with standing. It was a pretty big kitchen after all.

…And now I was hungry.

"We didn't think it necessary to provide support. It was just one person." Itachi responded, but then paused for a moment. "Or rather, just a skeleton."

"What's that?" emo boy asked, looking at the sword Madara was holding. I noticed Alex suddenly slip away and out of the room, but no one was paying much attention to her.

"A weapon." Suzan responded wryly, and emo boy rolled his eyes. Madara put the vial of blood on the table. I stopped rummaging through the refrigerator to look at it for a minute, then went back to look for some damned snacks.

"Put that on your weapons."

"Why?"

"It'll help." he answered vaguely, obviously not feeling the need to clarify himself.

"So, how much time do we have?" Ella asked, something which I was wondering as well.

"If Hades gave us these now, I'd say… a day, possibly less." Suzan guessed, and I put an arm around her waist, pulling her closer. How the hell did _I_ end up with a smart chick for a girlfriend?

"That's not a lot of time."

"Say cheese!" A suddenly flash of light startled us, and we looked over at Alex, who was holding a ridiculously small camera in her hand.

"Hey, hey! You know I hate photographs!" Suzan snapped at her.

"What is _that_?" Madara demanded to know, glowering at the camera.

"It takes pictures. See?" Alex turned the camera around to show him, and on the little screen (how the fuck did they manage to do that? There were cameras in our world, but never this small and… fucking _magical_) there was the picture she'd just taken. Madara gazed intrigued at the picture, when Alex took it back and took another picture specifically of him. "Aaaand would you look at that? You're very photogenic. What a surprise." she mused, though I figured it was sarcastic.

"Pardon?"

"It means you look great on photographs." Kakashi replied languidly, flipping a page of his porn book or whatever it was.

"Oh, can I take a picture too?!" Tobi asked enthusiastically, slipping out of Deidara's headlock and reaching over to try and snatch the camera.

"No!" Alex snapped at him. "First I'm taking pictures of everyone. Then you can have it, but _don't_ break it."

"I really don't wanna." Suzan muttered, grasping my arm and pulling me with her into the living room, using me as a shield so Alex couldn't take a proper picture. I took offense to that.

"What, you don't wanna remember me when I leave?" I said with a frown as we sat down. Suzan pouted as she pulled her legs up on the couch, snuggling up against my chest.

"We can take one later, if you'd like. But… but _you_ won't have anything to remember _me_ by."

"Actually, I do have something." I said, tugging my necklace. "You repaired this, remember?" She didn't seem satisfied, and suddenly stood up.

"Come on." She said, gestured me to follow her. I frowned at the sudden change in behavior, but went after her either way, up the stairs and into her room. I was confused for a moment as I looked around the room.

Wait.

_Wait._

Was this going to be my… parting gift? Were we going to…?

'_OH YEAH! Totally gonna get laid!'_

"What are you smirking about?" Suzan asked, shooting me a glance and then returned to going through a bunch of papers on her desk. I couldn't wipe the grin off my face as my chest filled with the feeling of anticipation. I sauntered over to her, and she turned around to face me with a scowl. "Seriously, what?" she questioned impatiently I put my hands against the desk, trapping her between my arms. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I knew you'd come around." She froze and her eyes widened in understanding.

"No, nonono, NO, you idiot!" she suddenly snarled at me. "That was _not_… I didn't… you're stupid!" she stammered, her cheeks flushing deep red. I was disappointed for a moment, but recovered quickly.

"Oh for fuck's sake, come on! This is the last night we have together!"

"I'm _not _going to do that, Hidan." she insisted. Well, fuck. "I… I mean that's just a step too far." My interest was piqued and I leaned closer to her, our noses nearly touching.

"So how far would you wanna go?" I asked with a wide smirk. The blush was still on her face and she took a deep breath, as if mustering up her courage.

"I... pretty far I think _but_-" she said before I could do anything, "-take it slow."

"Why not just all the way?" I whined, putting my arms around her waist and pulling her close against me, feeling the warmth of her skin through the thin fabric of our clothes. She was tense for a moment, but then relaxed and buried her face in my shirt.

"'M shy." she murmured timidly. I was not used to this kind of behavior from her at all. It was weird, but oddly adorable as well; strange how a woman with such a thick skin turned into a shy little girl when there was intimacy. I ran my fingers down her spine which elicited a small gasp, and she raised her head to stare up into my eyes, and I noticed her blush had disappeared.

"Okay." I said but couldn't suppress my amused smirk. "Okay, I'll go slow. Just let me kiss you already and stop talking." The pink flush returned on her cheeks. She opened her mouth to say something, but I frowned at her and she slowly nodded. I _tried_ to take it slow, I really did. I leaned over, but the minute her lips gently brushed against mine I couldn't help myself and nearly crushed my mouth on hers. She made a protesting noise, trying to back away but was trapped against the desk. I realized at this rate she was going to get _pissed_, so I tried to take it easy (even though I just felt like ripping her damn clothes off and doing her on the desk) and slowly moved my lips against hers, feeling her relax again.

The kiss was long and soft, and I was trying my damned hardest to not cross the line as my hands slipped under her shirt and explored the soft, warm skin. She shivered against my hands, putting her arms around my neck – so far, things were going great. Then she did something she probably shouldn't have; her tongue slipped through my lips and into my mouth. I moaned and lost all control, lifting her up and sitting her down on the desk. She parted from me, breathing heavily with wide and startled eyes. I was standing right between her legs and she was obviously uncomfortable with that.

"What are you-"

Suffice to say I didn't give a fuck about her comfort level at that moment.

I kissed her again, much more roughly this time, my hands on her upper legs as I pulled her as close as possible, this time my tongue exploring her mouth. She seemed to want to gasp and for a moment pull away, but then she moaned softly, and a pleasant chill ran down my spine. I wanted to hear more – I wanted to know what other enticing noises she was capable of making. Her legs straddled my hips, making me groan at the sudden contact. If she didn't want to have sex, she was doing a terrible job of trying to avoid it. We parted for a moment to catch our breaths but I leaned down to her neck and bit it, making her gasp again, then kissed it hungrily.

"Hidan," she breathed in my ear, squirming against me with each kiss.

Any more of this would drive me absolutely crazy, and whatever might follow next would be entirely her fault. Despite that, I kept on going. That is, until –

"Cheese!" A sudden white flash interrupted us and Suzan pulled away instantly, panting and her entire face flushing completely red. Alex stood in the doorway with a camera, grinning widely and then took off, sprinting downstairs. Suzan sighed, getting off her desk and taking her distance from me.

I was confused.

Then shocked.

Then I realized I wouldn't be getting any for the rest of this evening.

Then I felt absolutely fucking murderous.

"YOU LITTLE CUNT! GET BACK HERE!"

* * *

><p><strong>Itachi<strong>

Alex nearly collided into me in the living room had I not stepped aside. In hindsight, that was probably not that good of an idea as she then tripped and bumped into Deidara instead, the two falling down on the ground. I picked up the camera that rolled out of her hands and then saw a furious Hidan storming down the stairs while Deidara was cussing out Alex, who quickly scrambled up and decided that I would make a brilliant shield against infuriated immortal men.

"What did you do this time?" I asked quietly, and she snickered, pointing at the camera I was holding. I turned the device around and stared at the screen. "Ah." She'd caught Suzan and Hidan during a very private moment.

"Give me that fucking camera!" Hidan demanded, yelling right into my face. I frowned slightly.

"Why? I think it's a perfect memento." I responded calmly. Hidan's angry expression was replaced for a pondering one for a moment.

"Well, I guess, but- but that _bitch _had NO right do that!" he once again said rather loudly, glaring at Alex who was peeking over my shoulder at him.

"You should apologize." I agreed with Hidan, looking over my shoulder to her. Alex pouted. "Alex, you really should." I repeated, feeling tired of standing in between the two of them.

"Fine, _mother_." she huffed at me, making Deidara chuckle. I sighed, stepping aside and handing the camera over to Alex, leaving the two alone as I heard her mutter a reluctant apology and then being hit in the face with a pillow. I briefly looked around the room as I sat down on the couch next to Gaara, and saw Sasuke leaving the kitchen, a deep scowl on his face. He walked over to and sat down next to me.

"Something the matter?" I asked casually, even if it wasn't that unusual to see him frowning about something.

"Ella is sulking. It's annoying." he responded.

"Oh? You refer to her by her name now?" He shot me an annoyed look. "Is she in the kitchen?"

"Yes."

"You didn't ask her why she was sulking?" Sasuke crossed his arms over his chest, almost indignantly.

"Why would I?" he replied irritably.

"You do seem to care enough to _notice _she's sulking." Before he could protest I stood up and decided to go take a look. "I'll go talk to her." I glanced briefly over at Kakashi who was sitting in Suzan's infamous armchair (which now looked like a complete wreck but the girl refused to throw it out). I wondered why _he _wasn't going over to talk to her. Something must've happened.

When I walked inside the kitchen I saw Kakuzu sitting against the table with Ella frowning, sitting across him, leaning her head on her hands with her elbows on the table.

"Just get over it. Brooding about it isn't going to make it any better." Kakuzu said gruffly to her, glancing at me once when I came in. Ella hadn't even seemed to notice me coming in, her eyes glazed over as she was staring down at the table.

"I know that." she muttered. "But it still sucks." Only when I took a seat did she finally look up at me. "Oh, hey." she smiled mildly, and somewhat glumly.

"What's wrong?" I asked simply, not feeling like dancing around the issue.

"It's… it's nothing."

"She got rejected."

"I did _not_!" Ella protested Kakuzu's blunt statement. "I… I don't know – it was… it probably wouldn't have worked anyway." she spoke, trying to reassure herself which evidently failed as she sighed deeply and let her head rest on the table. Kakuzu looked annoyed with her now and stood up from his seat.

"You deal with her. I've had enough of her whining." he said, promptly leaving the room. However, I was surprised – he'd put up with her musings for no doubt a while now. She'd probably grown on him at some point. I stared at Ella who seemed quite depressed.

"So you had feelings for him?" I asked, though it felt wrong to say it aloud; I instantly felt severely irritated by the thought. Ella raised her head from the table, glancing at me and looking away.

"I _have_… feelings for him, but I'm… right now I'm confused and he doesn't want to… to be together when…" she sighed wearily. "It's complicated." I thought about her stammering for a moment.

"You're not sure who you love and he doesn't want to commit without reassurance, is that it?" I said carefully, not wanting to make the situation worse. Ella nodded slowly, avoiding eye-contact. There was a huge elephant in the room that neither of us wanted to address. I couldn't say I hadn't considered it, but I had eventually dismissed the idea of us… together. It wouldn't have been a good idea considering the short amount of time left, and even if I… even though I wanted to make her happy, I didn't know how, and so I simply _couldn't_. It was infuriating, but I couldn't force myself to change. She would never understand me, and that would complicate things.

"Yeah. That's it." Ella admitted slowly. I wasn't sure what to say next.

"It is probably for the best." An inane platitude was all I could offer her for the moment. "You should go to sleep. You look tired." She nodded slowly and stood up, as did I, as I wanted to take a look outside. I hadn't seen Tobi for a while. He was neither bothering Deidara nor causing a ruckus anywhere else, so he would have to be outside and I wanted to keep an eye on him.

"Itachi?" Ella suddenly spoke up, a little hesitantly.

"Yes?" She stood in front of me, looking conflicted about something. I waited patiently for her to say something, but unexpectedly she put her arms around me and hugged me tightly.

"In case I don't get to say this again, I'm… really glad we could be friends." she admitted softly. I was so startled by the sudden gesture I wasn't sure what to do. She was soft, and felt so fragile.

"As am I." I responded eventually, and she let me go again, smiling brightly, and then walked towards the door that led to the living room. "Ella," I spoke up, stopping her, "you should probably say that to him as well." She knew who I was talking about.

"Yeah, I should. Thanks, Itachi." she decided with a nod, and left. I lingered in the kitchen for a moment longer, then decided to leave to the backyard, looking for Tobi.

* * *

><p><strong>Tobi<strong>

"I know you're watching." I spoke with a clear voice, staring into the darkness of the forest that bordered to the backyard of the large house I'd been staying in for the past few weeks. I saw the faintest movements in the shadows of a group of trees nearby, the moonlight just barely shining through the leafs and illuminating the figure of a tall man which I'd seen before.

The guy – or rather, God – seemed to have a knack for showing up out of nowhere and fairly suddenly. The shadowy figure approached, his footsteps not making any sounds as he moved in between the trees.

"I was wondering what you'd do." Hades said idly as his dark eyes bore into my exposed Sharingan. "You didn't seem the type to just do whatever you're told."

"I have a proposition." I cut to the chase, not interested in small talk. Besides, it wouldn't take long for the others to notice I was missing and I'd rather avoid that.

"Of course you do." Hades replied indifferently. "It concerns Hecate, doesn't it?"

A more obvious observation couldn't have been made.

"You can't keep her powers for yourself." I noted, and he raised his eyebrows at me.

"I don't _want _to either. So many powers stored even into one being would probably just constantly give me migraines." he explained wryly, crossing his arms. I thought that to be quite an interesting little tidbit of information, though completely irrelevant to the situation at hand, it was still amusing to think deities could get migraines from an overload of powers.

"If I remember correctly, these powers consisted of making portals, granting wishes, witchcraft, and she had power over heaven, earth and sea." I summed up, remembering Alex researching the Goddess with her slim computer.

"That's about right. Also necromancy, but that's not as commonly known as the other powers she has." Hades confirmed sternly. Necromancy? Now _that _was certainly interesting.

"So you want to give all of these powers away for someone else to wield." He nodded once at my statement, his eyes narrowing slightly as he was getting my grip. At least he wasn't slow.

"You want these powers." he remarked with a mild frown when I stayed silent, to see if he could figure it out himself, which he did. "But what do I get in return, and how do I know you're trustworthy?" I almost wanted to roll my eyes at such a redundant question.

"You're a God, I'm a mere mortal; you probably know everything about me that there is to know. Including that I'm not nearly foolish enough to try and trick a God." I replied coolly. "And it seems, contrary to what the other deities think, you seem to want to kill Hecate all together." Hades' eyes widened slightly, and suddenly he looked around. A light breeze brushed through the forest, and I watched the God getting a little paranoid. Or at least, so it seemed to me.

"You should pick your words carefully." he warned, though I was not impressed. If Hades thought we were being watched, he probably wouldn't have shown up in the first place. He seemed to be a little overly cautious, which was a little annoying.

"Can they hear us here?" I asked him apathetically. Hades tilted his head slightly in consideration.

"Not at the moment, no. They're probably not paying any attention." He gave me the expected answer. He looked back at me again. "Make it quick. What do you propose?"

"I'm assuming they wouldn't approve of _you _killing her. But if I did it, it wouldn't be a problem for you, would it?" I decided that trying to do this subtly was going to be a waste of time. Besides, someone could come looking for me any minute now and I'd gladly bet my mask on that the person searching would be Itachi.

"You realize they might punish you for it? Unless… you're counting on me choosing you to fill Hecate's spot."

"Not exactly. All I want is a portion of her powers; the ability to grant wishes." I snorted. Which was entirely true. I had no interest in sitting on a high throne and stare down at the earth, forever watching the humans below me. That seemed quite boring, and I'd rather pass. I had no illusions of being a God. A ruler, maybe, but a deity? Not so much. Hades stared at me, then started laughing, amused.

"I see it now. You want to use her powers to create ultimate peace in your world, don't you?"

_'Bravo, genius.' _I thought sarcastically. _'I expected a God to be more astute than this.' _

"Possibly. It's a more practical plan than the one I had in mind originally." I explained briefly, and watched Hades contemplate it.

"And why not? If it's just a portion of her power, I'll ensure you'll get away with it with no problems. But _only _if you manage to kill her." Hades seemed pleased with this deal. I was certainly pleased. It would be much quicker than my plan A. "I don't break my promises, so you make sure you don't break yours either. Expect her to confront you sometime tomorrow."

"Of course." I responded indifferently and watched Hades retreat back into the shadows with a final nod, and he then disappeared from sight. I considered what he'd said for a moment before I turned around and left, walking back towards the house.

"Tomorrow, eh?"

* * *

><p><strong>Aaaand I'm done. Hmm. My writing has improved quite a bit during the break I took. I guess it was good for something after all :3<strong>

**The next chapter will be the final chapter of this story. After that I may post an extra chapter (kind of an epilogue, I suppose) featuring the new OCs that will play quite a role in the sequel. **

**I mean, if you guys want to, that is. If you'd rather wait to find out who the new characters are that's cool with me as well :P**

**...I might've failed at the HidaSuza smut, since I'm not... really used to it, hehe. So sorry if it was horrible to read xD**

**Don't worry KakaElla fans, you'll get your due in the next chapter, lol.**

**If you're interested, check my profile for all the stories I'm currently working on, and the stories that will be posted in the future!**

**And just for fun, what was your favorite moment/quote from the story? **

**Thanks for all your amazing, super awesome reviews and all your great support so far; without it I don't think I could've finished the story. I would write all your names down but there's just so many now! Just know that I appreciate every single one of you :D**

**See ya next time!**


	28. The means to a new beginning

_**This is it.**_

* * *

><p><strong>Ella<strong>

Confrontation was inevitable.

I never intended to actually go to sleep. How could I, knowing that a deity could attack us at any given moment? No, even if I wanted to, I'd probably worry too much and only end up grumpy. Instead I settled on staring out of my window for a while, the red curtains only opened slightly as I peered through them into the much too silent night and contemplated what I should do when the inescapable final fight took place. I knew nothing of combat nor even basic self-defense other than the standard kick to the crotch – assuming the creatures we were going to face even _had _a crotch to kick. If they didn't, it would mostly be run and hide for me. I'd never needed to learn it either. Our town was the safest place in the world, at least to me. Crime rates had always been low, and everyone was generally very friendly.

I sighed, realizing this was getting me nowhere. Instead of attempting to act all Suzan-like and setting up a useless strategy which I'd be forgetting in the heat of battle anyway, I should actually resolve whatever issues there were left.

And with that, I mean only _one _issue. Either way, I was definitely not going to part from Kakashi like this. We had to have some sort of ending, right? Even if it wasn't a happy one, it was better than no ending at all. Besides, I wasn't under any illusions about him being the love of my life (if such a thing even existed) or anything like that. Even if I were naïve in other aspects of life, love was not one of them. It was supposed to be the area which I handled better than Suzan and Alex. It was supposed to be my specialty, something I knew how to handle through and through. A temptress, a femme fatale – whatever stupid label there was, it generally applied to me.

Yet here I was, the only one with the relationship problems.

Funny how that works.

I was about to close the curtain and turn away from the window when I noticed someone moving in the shadows. I froze instantly, fear gripping at my heart, before I realized it was just Tobi. Well, not like that man wasn't intimidating, but it's preferable to a sociopathic Goddess and her undead minions of Hell. I immediately turned suspicious, trying to think of reasons why Tobi would wander off towards the forest that was near our mansion. As far as I could see, there was no one with him, and there should be no point for him to wander that far away. Had he spotted Hecate? No, he had to be scheming something, and whatever it was I doubted it was any good. Maybe I was being paranoid?

_No, that's not it. Tobi made scheming a profession – I should know that by now. He has to be planning something._

I decided that wondering about it would only end up making me anxious and glanced at the bland, rather generic, round clock on my wall. It was three AM, fairly late. The happy chatter or angry shouting you'd usually hear inside the house was absent, replaced by a morose atmosphere with the sounds of soft mutterings every now and then, almost as if the place was haunted. I couldn't stand it, and so I decided that maybe now was the right time to talk to Kakashi. Suzan was no doubt busy with Hidan doing whatever, and Alex was downstairs in the living room hanging around the others last time I saw her. It was time for me to say goodbye as well.

I took a deep breath, realizing that this could go either right or horribly wrong. I really wanted to part with him on good terms, at least, but I'd never been so insecure before, which made me nervous. What if I said something that made it all worse?

I shook my head, determined not to let such silly doubts ruin my goodbye.

I looked around in my room, wondering if I couldn't give him something to remember me by in case it went well. I pouted when I realized I had no "prized possession" I could give like a pretty necklace or even a lovely picture. So, I decided that he'd have to do without, and checked myself in the mirror, trying to fix my bun which had gotten messy like it so often did, when I realized I did have _something_. It meant nothing, really, just a very simple, black hair tie with a small, plastic, red flower on it as decoration, which matched the color of my hair perfectly. I pulled it out, my hair falling down and draping over my shoulders, and looked at the thing. I'd been using it regularly for God knows how long, always putting it around my wrist when I wasn't using it.

"This will have to do." I mumbled, a little disappointed I couldn't give him something more memorable, if he'd even accept it. I put it around my wrist, strengthened my resolve and walked out of the room, down the stairs to the living room. I immediately saw him sitting in Suzan's armchair, quietly observing Deidara who was having a heated discussion with Kakuzu about his art.

"Do you sell it?" the old man asked bluntly, and Deidara's scowl deepened.

"No, of course I don't sell it! This is MY art, MY explosions!" the blonde howled outraged.

"So it doesn't make you money in any way, shape, or form?"

"No, that's not the point, yeah!"

"It is, actually. How would you get by without money? I'm guessing those explosions of yours aren't edible?" Kakuzu remarked, raising his eyebrows slightly.

"You are one greedy bastard, you know that?!"

"That doesn't answer my question."

"To hell with your question!"

"To hell with your answer."

"You're impossible!"

"As opposed to being, what, possible? I never did understand why people said that." Deidara looked like he wanted to jump the man – having ever the short fuse.

"Uhm," I spoke up hesitantly, but focused only on Kakashi. He glanced up at me, and I saw the other two looking at me from the corner of my eyes, but I wasn't here for them. I avoided eye-contact. "Could I talk to you? In private, I mean?" I asked softly. He stared at me for a while, then nodded once, standing up from his seat. I went upstairs, figuring Itachi and some others were in the kitchen, and instead decided to go to my room. He followed without a word, but I could feel his gaze burning a hole in my back and a terrible discomfort started gnawing at me. We entered my room and he closed the door behind him, switching on the lights.

I looked at him, and he seemed completely calm. Maybe calm wasn't the right word. He seemed cold. Just a little bit, barely noticeable, really – but it still disturbed me. This time I didn't shy away from his gaze, and I began the conversation.

"I've been really selfish." I admitted genuinely, and he seemed slightly surprised at hearing that. "This is just not… you know, how things usually go, and this whole thing has been really confusing."

"This?" Kakashi repeated, eyebrows mildly raised, and I nodded slowly.

"Us. This situation. This entire… well, you get what I mean, right? I just didn't expect it to get so serious. I know that's not an excuse, but I was insensitive and I want to apologize for that. I was just so used to playing around, I suppose I never really thought of what it would be like for you. We're not the same, after all." I smiled meekly, hoping it would somewhat make up for my behavior, but a frown formed on his face.

"Are you saying this was all a game for you?" I panicked.

"No, no, of course not!"

"Then what? A fling?"

"I didn't… I mean it wasn't meant to… I swear I never intended–" he chuckled, and I stopped my stammering, staring at him hesitantly. "You're playing with me, aren't you?"

"Just a little bit." Kakashi admitted, the coldness in his eyes having completely disappeared. "I wish I could stay angry at you. That would make this a lot easier."

"I guess I deserve it. I _did _play around, in the beginning, yes, but then I really…." I trailed off, wondering if it was the right thing to say at the time.

"You really…?" Kakashi egged me on, curious to my answer – though he still stayed rather distant, which I appreciated. The last thing I needed right now was something to distract me.

"I guess I really fell in love." I murmured almost inaudibly, a little afraid of what the reaction might be. Only now was I actually being fair and had stopped toying around – and he was going to leave in what, a day? Maybe less? It would've definitely upset me. All that wasted time….

Kakashi stayed silent, his eyes widened a bit as if that was the last thing he'd expected to hear from me. I blushed, not because of shyness, but of shame as I averted my gaze. I felt a thread of guilt tugging at my heart and folded my arms, as if to try and shut it out.

_I should've told him earlier. I should've been more decisive. I should've done so many things!_

"Say it again." Kakashi responded softly. I felt cornered as I couldn't bring myself to look at him. But I felt like I had to repay him, in a way – so it had to be said. I took a moment to gather my composure, not wanting this to end up being the most awkward thing ever, like it had with Suzan and Hidan. I wanted to convey to him every single feeling I'd felt; every tingling in my stomach, every moment of warmth blooming inside my chest, every concern and doubt and _everything. _Our eyes locked.

"I'm in love with you." The words rang through the room with conviction, hanging clear in the air. Something tender yet strong, something passionate yet gentle, something exhilarating yet comforting – and this was what love was supposed to be. It felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders and I could breathe freely again. I paused for a moment as I considered these words. "Only you." I emphasized, having made my decision.

Itachi was just amazing, and no one could deny that – but I just _couldn't _understand him. No matter how I strained my brain and tried to figure out what went on in that head of his, I ended up clueless. This mystery was, admittedly, what had attracted me in the first place, but at the same time it was a huge obstacle I couldn't find a way around. In the end, I could only imagine a tiny splinter of his pain and suffering, I could only think of how hard life must've been to him, but I could _never _comfort him or set his mind at easy because I _couldn't understand_, and I could already tell this would ultimately drive us apart. Isn't communication, after all, the most important thing in a relationship? He was reluctant to communicate. Whether because he thought I couldn't understand him or because he didn't want to make me worry, I didn't know – but I didn't want to force him to. He needed someone who could _ease _through his defenses, no matter how thick they were. Peel them off, one by one – gently, affectionately, not forcefully.

In contrast to that, Kakashi always made me feel instantly comfortable, and there were no defenses to get through, because we _understood_. Something about his presence soothed me. Conversation between us flowed so easily, felt so natural, and I hoped that maybe Itachi would find someone who could do that for him as well, because it wasn't destined to be me.

No, my destiny was staring me right in the eyes, with a smile under his mask, his eyes happier than I'd ever seen them.

Before I could even realize how incredibly _cheesy _that had just sounded, my legs already began to move as if on commando. I wanted to… I didn't know. I couldn't even bring it in words, but knowing this might be the last private moment I had, our last moment together – it was despair that pushed me into his arms. I would give almost anything to make him stay just a while longer, to make this moment last a little longer. Love was such a cruel little thing.

"I took you this long to realize that, huh?" he muttered in my ear, and I buried my face into his chest, almost smothering myself against him.

"I'm sorry," I whispered pathetically, basking in the warm embrace of his strong arms. I'd been so stupid, _so _stupid. I'd been missing out on _this_ all this time. "I'm such an idiot." Kakashi chuckled.

"That makes two of us."

"If I hadn't been so difficult–" He gently held my chin between his thumb and finger, lifting my head up and making me face him.

"Are you really going to ruin the moment by complaining? Because I can make a whole list about the things you did wrong." he teased playfully, his fingers shifting to caress my cheek. I stared into his eyes a moment longer, as I wondered something, my gaze sliding over his mask.

"Can I kiss you?" I asked. He blinked, a little flustered, unsure how to respond to it at first. I brought my fingers up to his mask, tracing the outlines of his lips with my fingertips, and he seemed entranced for a moment as I stared up at him. "I understand if you're uncomfortable with it, but I really want to." I spoke softly with a longing look in my eyes. He was hesitant for a moment.

"Close your eyes." I did as I was told, and I heard the sound of fabric being pulled down. Oh so curious, but I wouldn't dare to ever betray his trust. When I felt the slightest warmth of his breath on my lips, my heart skipped a beat but I stayed perfectly still. I didn't want to be too forceful, after all. Something wonderfully soft brushed against my lips and left me breathless, and I carefully leaned forward, kissing him with all the tenderness in the world. His right hand cupped my cheek as he pulled me closer and answered to my kiss immediately. I felt like I was slowly melting, butterflies fluttering through my stomach and leaving a wonderful warmth behind – and yet I felt like I wasn't close enough. My arms wrapped themselves around his neck as I gently brushed through his hair with one hand, his wild locks stubbornly refusing to fall down.

_So he doesn't use hair gel! _I thought in wonderment as I brushed through his hair again, almost giggling against his lips which caused him to pull back for a moment. By the time I opened my eyes again he'd already pulled his mask back up.

"What?" he asked puzzled, and I chuckled.

"Your hair!" I answered with a wide smile, feeling like a little kid that had just gotten a new toy to play with. "It's natural!" He took a moment to stare at me, then laughed at my childish glee.

"You could've just asked me." he said amused. I pouted.

"But finding out like this is much more fun." I replied, brushing both hands through his hair, amazed at how naturally spiky it was. I then blinked, remembering the little gift I'd picked out for him. "By the way, I wanted to give you something to remember me by." I told him, pulling off the hair tie from my wrist, and presenting it to him. He seemed surprised as he took the hair tie and studied it.

"You always wear this one." he noted as he stared at it, and I frowned mildly.

"You noticed that?"

"Of course. I've had my eye on your for quite some time now, you know." He brushed a few locks of my hair out of my face for me. "You look beautiful with your hair down." I smiled warmly at the compliment, and he put the hair tie in his pocket. "I'll cherish it."

"So, what do you want to do now?" I asked slowly. "Because we're _all_ alone here, you know. And my door has a lock…." He blinked when realizing what I was suggesting, and a naughty smirk crept up on my face.

"You want to… here? Now?"

"No, let's have wild sex on the kitchen stove in front of everyone." I teased sarcastically, and his visible eye widened for a moment, a small, pink blush on his cheeks. "Are you imagining that right now? Naughty boy!"

"W-well… I doubt the stove would be comfortable." he murmured awkwardly, and I chuckled.

"Right," I leaned over to his ear. "So here are your options: you can blindfold me and bend me over the desk, lay me down on the floor or on the bed, but I wouldn't mind doing it on the stove either as long as it lasts _all night long_–"

"Ella," Kakashi interrupted, startled, "where did all of _this_ suddenly come from?"

"What?" I said, batting my eyelashes innocently. "I'm just seducing you."

"Really? I hadn't noticed that." he replied dryly. I pouted.

"You don't like sexy talk?"

"Er... I'm not sure how to respond to that." I smirked mischievously, pressing my body against his.

"I want you." I moaned softly in his ear, and I heard his breathing turn erratic as my hand slipped under his shirt.

"Ella–" he whispered in an attempt to call me off, though I was having none of it.

Until, of course, _oh so predictably_, a loud booming sound resonated through the house and Suzan started screaming at someone. Both of us froze, and I sighed, leaning my forehead against Kakashi's chest as I could already tell what would happen next.

"Ella! Hidan broke the microwave!"

"Darn it!" I swore angrily, and Kakashi patted me on my head.

"There, there." he cooed, though mildly amused, which only made my scowl deeper, feeling seriously aggravated at the stupid interruption.

"_Ella_!"

"FINE, I'm coming! Just shut up already!" There was an instant silence at my infuriated shout, and I sighed. If there was _one _thing I couldn't stand, it was being interrupted in the middle of a private moment. Kakashi just snickered at my anger and I pouted disappointedly.

"Come on." He took my hand in his and led me out of the room, while I sulked at the missed opportunity.

Hidan was going to clean up the mess or so help me God I was going to skin him alive.

* * *

><p><strong>Suzan<strong>

I glared at my boyfriend as he scowled right back at me, as if I was the one who'd had the brilliant idea of stuffing explosive clay in the goddamn microwave. Deidara was quietly laughing at how it had turned out, while Kakuzu looked like he _wanted _to facepalm, but was a little too dignified to do so. The two of them were seated against the table while Hidan and me were standing. Itachi had just entered the kitchen from the garden, and merely blinked at the mess. The microwave was basically completely in pieces which were lying scattered around the floor (one on top of the table) and the spot where it been placed on plus the wall right behind it had large burn marks on it.

"What the hell ever gave you the idea to do that anyway?! Both of you!" I yelled angrily, looking from one to the other.

"I was just wondering what would happen, yeah." Deidara defended himself with a shrug, and Hidan nodded, for once both of them on the same page. Only when causing havoc did the two agree on something. _Of course._

"And you jerks couldn't figure it out on your own instead of testing it on MY microwave?!" Right then Ella and Kakashi entered the kitchen. I, and several others present, noticed their hands were interlocked, though not even Hidan was brash enough to comment on it considering the absolutely furious glare Ella had on her face.

"What the…." Her expression fell when seeing the state the microwave was in. "Oh, you're kidding me!"

"On the bright side, you still have enough money to buy a better one–"

"Just… just shut up, Deidara."

"I thought he broke it, not-not _exploded _it!" Ella exclaimed as she let go of Kakashi's hand and walked over to the wreckage on the floor. She turned to glower at Hidan. "You had better clean this up."

"Fine, fine! But that bitch has to help too!" he complained, pointing at the bomber, who rolled his eyes at him.

"As long as you clean it up." Ella replied grouchily, and I realized I'd probably interrupted them when they'd been getting it on, so to speak. I grimaced, trying to get the thought out of my head. It was like imagining your mom doing something naughty – and I _really _did not need the mental image of that.

I decided to retreat to the living room, finding Tobi cheering Alex on as she played a racing game on the PS3 against Gaara, while Sasuke watched with mild interest and Madara just seemed annoyed with Tobi's yelling. To my relief no one was sitting on my armchair, so I sauntered over and dropped myself down it.

"No! No, go left! I mean right! Or was that left?"

"Dammit, Tobi!"

"Sorry, Alex-chan! Right, go right!"

"There is a freaking CLIFF on the right, Tobi!"

"I win." Gaara said dully, and I snickered as he finished his car first. Alex cursed as she put the controller down, done with playing.

"Sore loser." I pestered her and she stuck her tongue out to me.

"It's not fair! I just explained the controls and he already beat me!" she whined, which irritated Sasuke.

"That's because the controls are easy."

"Oh? You wanna have a go at it, brat?" I asked, and he narrowed his eyes.

"Fine." Alex threw me the controller and Sasuke took one from Gaara, as I started a new match. I didn't know what it was about this kid that irked me so much – oh wait, I did know! His shitty attitude, his unbearable arrogance, his stupid bipolarity – and yeah, yeah, it's understandable, but dammit he still annoyed the living crap out of me. Ever met a person whose _face _was just enough to irritate you? I have, and he was sitting on my freaking couch.

The race wasn't long, but I ended up beating him, and the scowl on his face was priceless. I almost wanted to say something childish and jeer at him, but decided not to ruin my victory.

Besides, Tobi did it for me.

"I thought Sasuke-kun said the controls were easy?"

The glare Sasuke shot towards the masked man had me bursting into chuckles. Eventually Hidan and Deidara came out of the kitchen, moping and generally annoyed at having to clean up their own mess. I grinned at Hidan who just frowned at me, sitting on the arm of my seat as me and Sasuke had another go in the game.

"Kick his ass, yeah!" Deidara cheered me on, as I made a sharp turn with the car, bumping into Sasuke's who promptly bumped right back into me. I gritted my teeth, determined not to let him get away with it and leaned forward, focusing on the screen while–

Everyone in the room froze. The most dreadful howling echoed through the house, piercing right through the walls like a siren, a warning. I took a deep, shaky breath as I realized this was probably it – and by the time I put the controller down and stood up, the guys had already sprung into action. Madara had reacted first, wasting not a moment and had left the room by the time I was standing. Sasuke followed him, as did Gaara. Hidan looked at me questioningly as he seemed to want to leave as well, and eventually grabbed my arm and pulled me along when I didn't make a move to follow him. Alex trailed behind us, and soon everyone was gathered in the kitchen. The odd, high-pitched howling had only grown stronger, and was now accompanies by the soft noises of groaning.

"So she's finally arrived." Madara said quietly, and from the glare in his eyes I could tell he had some sort of intense hatred for the Goddess. Kakuzu turned to look at me, Alex, and Ella.

"You three, stay inside." he ordered gruffly, and I frowned, but didn't protest. There was nothing we could do against such a force anyway. I glanced at the other two, and they also seemed fine with that, so I nodded.

"Alright, let's go!" Hidan said excitedly. "Time to bash someone's skull in!"

"Don't we need some sort of strategy, yeah?" Deidara said dryly.

"Screw it, we'll make it up as we go! Right, Kakuzu?" Hidan said cheerfully, elbowing Kakuzu mildly. The old man gave him a murderous glare which Hidan promptly ignored. He leaned over to me for an unabashed kiss in front of everyone ( _Dammit, Hidan!_) as I blushed several shades of red while he crushed his lips on mine, then pulled back and without another word, scythe in hand, left the kitchen. "Let's go, ya old fart!" I heard him calling for his partner who frowned mildly, but followed nonetheless.

"Well, I guess we'll improvise." Kakashi said indifferently, and took one last look at Ella, who had the concern plastered all over her face.

"Just be careful." she couldn't help but say, and he seemed to smile under his mask. With a reassuring nod, he walked out as well, followed by both Madara and Sasuke who didn't even glance at us – not like I cared, or anything.

Pricks.

"Kick some ass out there, Dei." Alex said cheerfully to Deidara, who rolled his eyes at the nickname. I smirked.

"Put up a good show! I wanna see some fireworks tonight." I told him playfully, and he grinned back.

"Naturally! I'll blow that bitch back to where she came from, yeah!"

"Don't be too reckless." Ella said, crossing her arms.

"Yes, mommy." With that last, sarcastic remark, he too left.

Of course, Tobi followed him while running like a complete maniac.

"WAIT! Deidara-senpai, wait for–"

"SHUT UP, idiot!"

Gaara seemed to want to leave too, when both Alex and Ella stared at him in disapproval.

"Where do you think you're going without a goodbye, huh?" Alex said with a pout. The two of them pulled him into a hug simultaneously, and the completely flustered look on his face was highly amusing.

"I… I'm sorry?"

"Just make sure to return home safely! Lots of people are depending on you back there, ya know, what with you being the leader of the village and all. But hey, no pressure." Alex said with a grin as both of them released him. I just chuckled at the display, and Gaara nodded slowly, leaving the room as well – thought with the faintest smile on his face. That left, Itachi. Ella didn't think twice about hugging him either. He hesitantly returned the gesture, and I wondered what he was thinking about.

"You be careful too." she told him, almost sternly, and for the first time I saw him smile, though it had something sad about it.

"I will." was his only response as he was the last one to leave.

We were all alone.

* * *

><p>The Goddess emerged from the dark shadows of the forest with a stately posture as he gazed at the mansion her enemies resided in. A slight breeze made the hem of her white robes flap mildly in the wind, as did her raven black hair. Her skin seemed a sickly kind of pale, and she had some creases under her eyes from exhaustion, but a determined look in them. They'd had glistened with such liveliness in the past, but their light had long since dimmed. She still had a youthful appearance, but looked completely depleted from most of her strength. Once beautiful, now fallen from grace. Behind her, there were the crunching sounds of her underlings marching through the woods.<p>

Some were cloaked, others revealed their skeletal form as they continued onward their bones white as snow as they were armed with the most basic weapons, a few had some armor to cover them, though it probably wouldn't do much good. These were the dead she had risen from the ground to aid her in this battle. She knew the other deities were watching, _especially _Hades. In fact, she was willing to bet he was somewhere nearby. Their howling stopped, as they stopped as well, standing right beside their mistress.

Her ever-steady gaze narrowed when spotting her challengers. They were right across from them, almost neatly lined up as they watched her. She took a step forward, looking at each of their faces.

"'Tis not too late to surrender." she called out to them.

"It is, for you." Madara Uchiha responded, the sword in his right hand glinting faintly in the moonlight. The Goddess' breath hitched for a moment when she realized what kind of a sword that actually was. There was the tiniest hint of fear in her eyes, before she scowled at the mortals, determined not to be defeated, just as they were determined to defeat her. There was too much on the line for both sides, and it promised to be a fierce battle.

"Go," the Goddess whispered to her underlings. The howling of dogs commenced once again, this time with the fierceness of beating war-drums, and there came the movement – but it would be met halfway.

The notorious terrorist had come prepared, throwing his clay sculptures into the air after they had taken the form of birds. They took to the air, growing larger mid-air, soaring through the sky and making a huge dive towards the countless of undead running towards the shinobi. Dozens of them were taken out at once, and only the cloaked ones rebuilt themselves.

The immortal duo did not hesitate to throw themselves in the battle, though one of them was far more eager than the other, cackling with new-found joy as he swung his scythe around with such fervor his partner had to take distance from his as he smashed numerous skeletons into pieces. While Hidan was having a great time after having been away from battle for so long, Kakuzu was satisfied with using basic, but very powerful, elemental ninjutsu to also take out multiple opponents at once. His fire scorched their bones and turned them to ash while his wind cut them into a million pieces.

"Oi, Kakuzu! Leave a few for me, would ya?!" Hidan yelled at him, and the man merely scoffed.

"Look around, idiot. There's plenty." was his irritated reply.

"Not if you keep using those fancy jutsus!" Hidan responded with a scowl, swinging his scythe as he decapitated three skeletons in one go, their skulls falling on the ground as their bones crumpled into a little pile.

The two younger ones of the company seemed to be doing fine as well. The Kazekage had no problems with crushing the skeletons with his sand, and while the youngest Uchiha realized these creatures were insusceptible to genjutsu, from previous experience he knew Amaterasu could take care of the annoying cloaked ones who insisted on rebuilding themselves even after being crushed by a small wave of sand. Though for the moment, he was satisfied with slicing the most vulnerable ones into pieces with his katana – though some of them did provide resistance as they were armed with swords and shields as well.

Similarly, the oldest Uchiha had taken to shattering his enemies with the sword that had been given to them, and found that even the cloaked ones could not rebuild themselves after being struck down by that blade – though becoming impatient as he wanted to face the Goddess herself as soon as possible, he used an incredibly large and powerful fire ninjutsu to clear most of his enemies out of the way, and bit by bit, advanced toward Hecate who became more and more anxious as time went by.

Not far from him, the Copy Ninja put his infamous arsenal of the thousand jutsus to good use, though he used them sparingly, as he didn't want to exhaust himself too early. By his side was Itachi, who demonstrated what wonders you could do with just a kunai and a few shuriken at hand. The two of them were closer than the mansion than the rest, taking care of whatever enemies managed to get past the others' defenses.

"You're not showing off, are you?" Kakashi questioned dryly when Itachi shattered the torso of a skeleton with just a simple kick, and proceeded to cut right through the head of another with his kunai.

"If I were showing off, I'd be throwing fireball jutsus around everywhere." Itachi replied to this in kind, which caused both of them to briefly glance at Sasuke in the distance. Kakashi snorted a laugh while Itachi sighed at his younger brother's displays of power.

The three girls in the mansion could hear the violence going on outside, and so two of them – Alex and Suzan – decided to peek through the backdoor, though Ella had decided to stay inside, and was scolding them and trying to get them to close the door and get back inside.

"But you have to see this! This is so awesome!" Alex said amazed as she saw another large explosion caused by Deidara. Suzan snickered, but had her eyes mostly on her beloved, who seemed to be having the time of his life on the battlefield. Ella was not happy at all, as she thought it was still too dangerous.

"Just get inside before something happens!" she pleaded, but the two wouldn't listen, and watched the army of the Goddess get thinner and thinner with every passing second.

"Ha! I'm surprised Sasuke hasn't whipped out Susano'o yet!" Suzan sneered, making Alex roll her eyes.

"You are such a hater."

"You have no right to talk, Uchiha fangirl."

"Can we _not _have this argument right now?!" Ella snapped for once, genuinely stressed as she was pacing up and down the kitchen. Suzan shot her a glance.

"Relax, Ell, these guys are all completely overpowered. I'm sure they'll be just fi–"

"Oh, shit!" Alex gasped, interrupting them and Suzan was drawn back to the battle again. It seemed they had finally reached the Goddess, but Sasuke was lying on his back, visibly startled for a moment.

"What the hell happened?!"

"I don't know, I think she used the Force or something!"

"This isn't Star Trek and that's not even funny!"

"Star Wars."

"Whatever!"

Back on the battlefield, Sasuke was back on his feet again and was fine. He'd managed to break through the dozens of skeletons blocking his path and reach her, but she'd raised her hand and suddenly an incredible force had crashed against his chest, sending him flying backwards for a few feet and momentarily leaving him breathless. He was surprised he hadn't broken a rib or two.

"What the hell was that?!" Deidara called out, having seen what had happened. Just a green flash had sent the kid flying. The Goddess herself was fuming, starting to realize she was losing. The numbers of her skeletons had waned drastically, and even the cloaked ones were starting to get defeated by their strongest techniques and the unique sword in Madara's hands. She could not let him hit her with that. He was much too close to her now – one, two, three, four more down.

She gritted her teeth as he faced her with cool determination, sword ready in hand and thirsting for her blood.

"How _dare _you!" she spat furiously, quickly throwing her palm up towards him as well. He'd seen, however, what this had done to Sasuke, and had been expecting it. With the reflexes of one who'd been born in the midst of wars and battles, he dodged the green energy, which in actuality was simply a large but very fast beam, feeling the breeze on his face as it flew right past him and hit a group of skeletons instead which instantly got destroyed. She did not give up, however, and while they circled each other, she'd throw another beam or two at him, which he dodged instinctively. She clenched her jaw, her brows furrowed in utter frustration – and this time, he could not dodge the next beam coming his way. He immediately raised his sword in an attempt to block it, and to his –and also Hecate's – complete surprise, the beam was deflected by the smooth surface of the sword, the red carvings glinting ominously.

The beam shot right back at Hecate who did not have reflexes as fast as Madara's, and hit her in the gut. She was sent flying back, gasping for air, and fell down on the ground, but quickly got back up. Her hair was now a complete mess, and the furious look in her eyes had partially made place for desperation.

But she did not make any futile threats, nor did she beg. She refused to lose the last of her dignity to such a man, a mere _human_, no less. She figured he posed the only threat to her as only he possessed a weapon capable of killing a deity, so when the immortal and loud man lunged at her from behind, she wasn't going to dodge until the scythe started to make a cut in her shoulder. A mortified look crossed her face, and she hit him with a beam right in the gut. He flew back, landing in the swimming pool. His beloved gasped in horror as she cried out his name, but he came up swimming to the surface not a moment later.

"I'm fine!" he yelled angrily, soaking wet as he hoisted himself up from the pool, blood that had been on his scythe coloring the water red. Hecate was starting to panic as she stared at the deep gash on her shoulder as it ached agonizingly, almost burning. Madara was standing right across her, and she was finally surrounded as the last of her skeletons had been defeated. But she was not planning on going down that easily. First, she decided to take the long-ranged fighters out first. With a swift motion of her palm, skeletal arms shot out of the ground, wrapping themselves around Deidara and Gaara's legs, and torso, slowly pulling them down into the earth.

"What the – get this crap off me, yeah!" Deidara yelled as the arms were gripping both of their wrists painfully, making them unable to retaliate. Sasuke tried cutting him free with his katana as he was closest to him, but he barely made a scratch on the bone's surface. Kakuzu's black tendrils shot out of his arms, grabbing the skeletal arms which were wrapped around Gaara and trying to pull them off – but they were far tougher than he'd expected.

This little technique, however, had rather drained Hecate and she doubted she could use any more necromancy to help her out. She held out her hand, and within a flash of bright green light, a white staff had appeared in her hand, sharp blades on both ends of it. She was not all that proficient in combat, but it would have to do. While Sasuke and Kakuzu were trying to free Deidara and Gaara before the ground swallowed them whole, the others focused on attacking Hecate.

A fireball from Itachi disappeared into a portal she opened in the nick of time, sending it to another dimension. This, however, required all her attention and so gave Kakashi plenty of opportunity to flank her from behind. She just barely repelled his kunai with her staff, and black tentacles shot out of the ground around her, attempting to grab him. He jumped back quickly, but one of them managed to catch his leg and for a moment he was pulled back. Hidan quickly solved this, however, by slamming his scythe down on the tentacle and cutting it in half. Suzan saw this exchange, and recognized those tentacles – the same that had completely immobilized Pain. Getting caught by them would be very bad news. Hidan didn't seem to concerned with that, as he furiously swung his scythe towards her, though she ducked and dodged.

"Insolent creature!" she spat, flinging another green beam towards him which he blocked with his scythe, but from the force was sent back a few steps nevertheless. As he recovered from the blast, this time, she flung a red, spear-like beam towards him. This same beam, most of them recognized, had pierced Ella's shoulder weeks ago, and was headed straight for Hidan's head. Fortunately for him, Kakashi shoved him out of harm's way and the spear ended up piercing a tree instead.

"Now we're even." Kakashi said dryly, and Hidan just glared, not wanting to respond to that.

At the same time, Kakuzu had broken one arm off Gaara, but the other was still pulling him down. Similarly, Sasuke had cut through an arm, and was then working on the other, frustrated at how slow it was going as Deidara was nearly shoulder-deep in the ground.

"To think _you'd _be the one to try and save me, yeah." the bomber mumbled with a deep scowl. Sasuke seemed tempted to give him an insult, but instead focused on the arm.

"You'll owe me after this." he only grunted in response, which made Deidara's scowl only deeper.

While that was going on, Hecate was starting to feel death breathing on her neck as Itachi landed a hit on her arm – another deep wound, blood flowing down her lower arm. She growled in fury, throwing three red spears at him. One of them scathed his leg, and he stumbled only for a moment before regaining his stance again, though the wound _burned_, and it almost felt like it was on fire. He narrowed his eyes at this, and noticed Hecate was starting to exhaust herself. It was only a matter of time.

Tobi finally showed his face, and now he was holding the transparent, star-shaped diamond in his hand.

The object that started all of this, would be the means to finish it.

Her eyes widened in recognition when seeing the thing in the masked man's hands.

"You… you can't!" she cried out in disbelief.

"What are you looking at?" Madara told her, promptly lashing out with his sword in her moment of distress. It resulted in another wound across her chest, and the second attack landed one on her stomach. She blocked the third one, and futilely tried to counter-attack, but he dodged it with ease, delivering another cut across her left arm.

Every time that particular sword hit her, it drained another portion of her powers. With a final kick to the gut, as he saw she was done for, she was down on her knees, the staff falling out of her hands and disappearing into a green light. The arm that had been holding Gaara and Deidara in place released them and dissolved into ashes, and Sasuke and Kakuzu pulled them out of the earth.

The battle was over.

Tobi walked over to the exhausted and bleeding Goddess. Such a pitiful sight, seeing her on her knees. There was nothing left of her former splendor and stature, the determination in her eyes replaced by a look of despair.

And still, she refused to beg. Still, she clung to whatever pride and dignity she had left. Instead she held her chin up high, a look of utter hatred and defiance crossing her delicate features as she glared up at the masked man. Madara thought this, at least, was admirable, while it only irked Tobi to see she refused to give up.

"Seems like you lost." he said almost childishly in his high-pitched voice, and held the star right in front of her. Hecate gasped, whatever faint radiance that had covered her before leaving her features. Green light was sucked out of her body, filling the transparent star. The three girls that had been watching from the house now felt like it was safe to get out and approach them, as Hecate was slowly but surely being drained from her powers. Ella frowned, distrustful of the masked man as she'd always been, but for the moment asked Kakashi whether he was alright, and when he nodded, turned her gaze to Itachi whose leg was bleeding, which Sasuke was already asking about. He quickly assured both of them it was nothing serious.

Alex helped wipe the dust off Gaara's clothes while teasing Kakuzu about being the first to jump to the boy's aid, and Suzan scolded her boyfriend for being reckless, then turning to Deidara and praising his incredible explosions during the fight.

Hecate kept bleeding.

Tobi felt like the container was completely full and so pulled it away. Hecate, so drained from most of her powers, still refused to collapse – and attempted to stand up instead.

Most of her powers, gone.

Not all.

"Give it up. You've lost." They all turned their gaze and saw the God of the Underworld, just standing there in the clearing, as if he'd been watching all the time. He certainly did love to show up without any warning. Hecate gritted her teeth.

"If _you _hadn't meddled, I would've crushed every single one of them!" she snarled, though he seemed unimpressed.

"But you didn't!" Tobi said matter-of-factly, and in a much softer tone said, "So, time for you to go, Hecate-san." he pulled a kunai out, and no one made a move to stop him, because no one quite frankly cared about the cruel Goddess.

No one but Ella.

"Stop!" she screamed, running forward immediately before anyone could stop her, putting herself between the Goddess and the masked man, both equally shocked at her interruption.

"Ella, what the hell are you doing?!" Suzan hissed at her friend, who bit her lip.

"Ella-chan," Tobi said sweetly, but in a mildly threatening tone, "you should really move aside now." She shook her head.

"You can't kill her." the redhead declared. Hecate was completely baffled. After everything she'd put this girl through, still, there she was, trying to save her life. Why?

"Why _not_?!" Hidan whined. "She deserves it!"

"We already took all her powers, that's enough! Let… let the other Gods decide her punishment! It's not up to us." Ella said determinedly. There was some truth to her words, but the girl just loathed anything violent and absolutely abhorred murder. She couldn't let it happen in front of her very eyes. "Isn't that why you're here?" she then questioned Hades. He stayed silent for a moment – a moment is all she needed to connect the dots.

The reason why Tobi had gone to the forest.

She opened her mouth in shock, realization dawning on her. Tobi saw this expression on her face, knew it was now or never, and shoved her aside. Hades, eyes widened, watched this take place.

Hecate had lost most of her powers.

Not all.

In just a second of carelessness, the power swirling through the container with such fervor, Tobi had thought it had been enough, not used to handling such enormous power – but he'd unintentionally left her with one last ability.

The one to open portals.

In desperation, in fear for her very life, she opened a portal right beneath them, as it was the only thing she could do. The ground disappeared, Hades opened his mouth to scream in fury, but it was far too late.

Gaara, Alex and Kakuzu were standing farthest away, _just _in the range of the portal. The two shinobi realized what was happening, and in order to keep at least her safe, they pushed her away, and she landed on safe ground, while they fell down.

Ella had been in the center of it, and there had been no hope for her to get away. Suzan had been standing just a few mere feet away, and was also much too close to get out of harm's way.

In the end, Tobi had lost his balance and had failed to kill Hecate.

You could say, in a way, that Hades had lost this battle, since the container with her powers in it disappeared together with them inside the portal, as they all fell down and were swallowed whole by the darkness.

Where they would end up, even the Goddess didn't know – but whatever happened, it promised to be quite the ride.

And so the object that had started all this, was the means to a new beginning.

* * *

><p><strong>My oh my, it has been quite the adventure, no?<strong>

**Well, what is there left to say?**

**First of all NO KAKAxELLA FANS HAVE THE RIGHT TO COMPLAIN _ANYMORE_! MWAHAHAHAHA!**

**To be fair, I figured maybe I should make that part extra-long since Ella hasn't been getting _any _decent loving the entire freaking story... so there's that :P**

**I love every single one of you who stuck with me throughout this entire story, I love all of your reviews, I just love, love, love - feel that? That's my heart flooding with love for ALL OF YOU! **

**SO MUCH LOVE TO GIVE!**

**It's 5 AM here.**

**That should show you how dedicated I am to this. I stayed up until 5 AM to write this. So please forgive me if there are any stupid mistakes in grammar, I'm not entirely... clear-headed. **

**I promise I'll correct everything once I get some much needed sleep...**

**Luckily my school is on break for a weekend, so yeah.**

**But this is it! It's done!**

**MY BABY! IT'S FINISHED!**

**I can't tell you when the sequel will arrive, it will definitely take a few months, but I'll be uploading the Epilogue (with a mysterious new OC you'll be seeing in it) tomorrow evening, I believe, so please do give your thoughts on that once it comes out.**

**And yeah, Alex won't be showing up in the sequel (save for the first chapter but that's it). Mostly did this because she's not my OC and writing her has become tiresome as of late, so I decided it was best to let her character go, as she didn't play as big of a role as the other two girls anyway.**

**Also your thoughts on what you'd like to see most in the sequel? Or any ideas if you have them?**

**So once again, lots of love to all of you amazing followers and reviewers, and I hope I'll see you around and back when I finally post up the sequel!**

**Lots and lots and lots and lots of love, Cloud. **


	29. Thanks, crazy Goddess

_**Epilogue**_

**Kiyomi **

Peace is overrated.

When you think about it, it really just is the break between each war. Some breaks are long, others tedious, a few absurdly short – and this all would purely depend on your perspective. If you were a civilian and you lived long enough, wars and battles would seem to come and go like the seasons in a year. It just seemed so _natural. _But what if you were fighting in the war? A kunoichi was a hero in war, but what was she during peace time? Trained to kill, honed her skills for years on end and for the sole purpose of annihilating all her enemies, all her clan's enemies; what would you think her reaction would be when you told her to put her sword down and revert to civilian life – to pretend like for the past fourteen years she _hadn't _been practicing how to kill her opponents in the most efficient and brutal ways possible ? To those of you who _would _tell her that, who would think that adapting to a peaceful life was easy for someone like that, I only have one other question to ask you.

Are you dense?

Well, _are _you? You must be. Yes, of course you are dense, of _course_ you would be a complete and utter fool. There's no other reason to believe any rational human being would otherwise believe such nonsense. Oh, but don't misunderstand; there's nothing wrong with being dim-witted. Someone has to be your local garbage man, no? That's how the world goes around.

See, depending on the individual, a shinobi could have several different reactions. The most common one would be to tell you that you are a fool for asking such an impossible task and refuse to comply. Then there's the shinobi who decide to abide by your request and turn into paranoid wrecks – seeking battle where there is none to be found, turning into common criminals, created by your ignorance. Then there are the few who actually manage to adapt. Most do so over a long period of time, very few do it quickly.

Me? I'm glad you asked. When my clan, the Fujimoto clan – or more specifically, the clan leader – asked this of me, at first, I felt like going on a rampage. Unfortunately I was much too rational to do such a thing. So I left, and I took my son with me – adopted son, mind you. He's the sweetest thing that ever came out of this world, and I decided that perhaps I should lay low and cease my battles – for his sake, at least. I didn't feel bad about leaving much at all. I hadn't exactly had what one could call a "happy" childhood. Maybe "absolutely miserable and appalling" was a better term.

But let's get back to the main story. After doing the rebellious thing and abandoning my small village, which you'd expect from your rebellious fifteen year old kid and not your twenty year old daughter, I got bored. Utterly bored, with life in general. I guess I could paint for hours on end, but it's not like I got inspiration from just staring at a tree. Yes, there are many trees where I live at the moment. Too many. So I decided to cut some into pieces with a few Fūton techniques. It was really just an excuse to use some ninjutsu again, but this life was really killing me. Day in and day out it was the same thing all over again, and not a moment passed where I didn't long for just a second of excitement. Sure, the little creatures my child brought home every night (such as possibly poisonous insects, small animals, on a few occasions even _birds_) are fun to study and play around with for a while, but other than that it was a tranquil life.

Perfect for a civilian. Torturous for a warrior.

So just imagine my astonishment, and anticipation, _and _curiosity, when I saw a massive meteor falling out of a great black hole in the sky on a given Tuesday morning. The meteor wasn't covered in flames, however, but it did have a great amount of velocity and split up into two pieces. What interested me more was the _giant hole in the sky_, which should've been absolutely impossible unless we were living under a fake sky somehow, but that would only be possible to consider as a serious option if I were the same kind of deluded person who thought the earth was square. Though it would be amusing if it was. A square is a far more interesting shape than a circle – but I digress.

I told my son to stay inside and lock the doors as I went to check out the meteor piece that had fallen so close to our wooden cabin that we could feel the vibrations from the crash beneath our feet. Practically in my backyard. When I got there, which only took me half a minute, I didn't find any rock originating from space as one would assume when seeing a meteor. What I found instead were six people. There wasn't even a crater of any kind, they were simply lying on the grass in the wide valley which bloomed with a vast array of flowers, as if they were sleeping. The whole situation seemed completely ridiculous and possibly dangerous – and my heart skipped a beat at the exhilarating prospect of adventure.

Then I realized I had an eight year old son to take care of back home, and, almost disappointedly, I decided that being a responsible parent was the far more sensible thing to do. It wasn't like home was exactly far away; I'd only had to walk about twenty feet to find them in the midst of a small clearing in the forest. I glanced back over my shoulder, and spotted my much too curious kid standing outside, in front of the door as he stared at me with his hazel eyes.

"Haru, get back inside." I called out to him evenly, with a disapproving frown on my face. The boy pouted.

"But mama, I wanna see the meteor!"

"Haruki, I won't tell you again. Get back inside the house." When the expression on my face didn't change, he sighed and closed the door again, safe inside the house.

I pulled my katana out of its black scabbard which I usually kept on my back, clipped onto my waist obi, as I approached the six strangers that had fallen out of the sky. My eyes widened slightly as I recognized the robes three of them were wearing: Akatsuki. There was one girl them with strikingly red hair. My gaze shifted to the fifth one who seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place his name, and he was lying on his stomach so I couldn't see his face, though he had long, black hair and red armor which I swore I'd seen somewhere before. The sixth one was a woman with an odd, white dress and the faintest glow over her – something that looked much too strange to be described as a form of chakra.

Then the three in the Akatsuki robes – one was unmistakably Itachi Uchiha, as I could see his face since he was lying on his back. The other one was wearing an odd orange mask, and I didn't recognize him. The last one with his blue-tinted black hair I didn't recognize either, but he seemed rather young. Couldn't be older than eighteen, at most.

So, three criminals and three other strangers who were potentially dangerous as well. Not only was I outnumbered, I was in the middle of nowhere and calling for help would accomplish nothing, plus I had a child to look after. I decided that tying them up before they regained their consciousness was the best option. I warily approached the youngest Akatsuki member, leaning over him. He seemed out of it. Holding my katana ready in case of a surprise attack, I briefly touched his shoulder. No response. I shook his shoulder lightly. Still no response. I did the same with the red-haired girl, and she didn't give me a response either. Feeling it was safe enough, I pulled out a scroll from the pouch strapped to my hip, rolling it open. Within a puff of smoke, two long strings of chains embedded with my chakra appeared. Not ideal for tying people up, but it would have to do – and it was stronger than regular rope anyway.

It took quite a while to tie them all up and it was quite a pain, actually, but better safe than sorry. I wondered what to do with them as I sat down and stared. I'd tied up the two women with the man with armor on, while the other three were tied up to each other as well – but because they were Akatsuki, I'd put four sealing tags on the ground around them, keeping them trapped in a purple tinted barrier. After a few minutes of sitting there and contemplating whether to turn them in to Kumogakure, which wasn't far from here, I became curious about the one with the mask. I wondered what he was hiding under it, though I figured he probably suffered from sort of disfigurement.

Eventually, they regained consciousness. The woman with red hair seemed completely dazed and was looking around listlessly, while the woman in the white robes seemed fuming as she looked down at the chains around her. The vaguely familiar man tied to them frowned mildly as he gave a light tug to the chains, which rattled mildly but otherwise didn't budge. Itachi Uchiha seemed a little bemused, though he regained his composure immediately, glanced once at his chains, then the tags on the ground, and looked up at me with a cool stare. I avoided his gaze, knowing full well how dangerous he was, and instead looked at the younger boy who glared at his chains next to him. As for the masked man–

"Oh no! We're trapped!" he cried dramatically. I blinked, not having expected such a childish, high-pitched voice to come from behind that mask, and I chuckled, focusing all attention on myself now.

"Whoever you are, release us." the youngest Akatsuki member demanded, clearly irritated as he rattled the chains while sitting upright. I raised my eyebrows.

"Try asking me politely, and I might just put it on the bottom of my to-do-list for today." I replied derisively, as rudeness was one of the things that really got under my skin.

"We mean you no harm." Itachi Uchiha said calmly. I glanced at him, and quickly looked away, focusing on my chakra and checking for irregularities in case I'd fallen for a genjutsu. Everything felt fine.

"Guarantee me my safety, and I'll let you go." I replied to him, and he stayed silent for a moment.

"How can we, when you don't trust us?"

"Would you trust three criminals that just fell out of the sky?"

"You have a point. So what do you intend to do with us?" I pondered his question for a moment.

"I might just decide to hand you over to Kumogakure. I haven't decided yet." I said languidly as I leaned back on my hands which were firmly planted on the grass. The red haired woman and vaguely familiar man, however, were staring at the woman with the white dress who was tied up with them instead.

"You–" the man in red armor spat, glaring intensely at the woman, who scoffed at him as she interrupted him before he could finish whatever insulting remark he'd had in mind.

"You should be grateful, boy. I brought you back to your world, didn't I?" she told him off and I watched this exchange with interest. So these were not exactly allies, but this woman _had_ saved them from something or someone. Odd that she'd call him boy; they appeared to be around the same age. This had to do with them falling out of the sky, no doubt, and if what the woman said was to be taken literally, that hole had actually been a portal to another world. I decided that maybe she'd meant it in a more figurative way, because the former possibility was downright absurd.

"Yes, right after attempting to kill us. This changes nothing." the man replied coldly, and the red haired woman winced at his harsh tone, or maybe she had a headache? The Akatsuki members listened to this conversation as well.

"Madara, please, can we discuss this later?" the redhead asked quietly, and I widened my eyes. That man's name was Madara? If that implied what I thought it did, it would certainly explain the striking similarity, but it was downright preposterous to think this was _the _Madara Uchiha.

That was until the man scowled, as if having realized something, and his coal black eyes turned red, revealing the pattern of a three tomoe Sharingan. I immediately stood up from the ground, taking my distance as the shock numbed me. It couldn't be, it just _couldn't. _Though, in theory, an extremely advanced space-time ninjutsu could allow you to travel back in time or to the future, but this was yet unheard of and only a vague hypothesis. Not to mention what the woman had said about bringing him back to his world didn't make sense either – he didn't belong in this timeline if he even _was _Madara Uchiha. I decided that, in the end, he couldn't be. He was probably his descendant named after him or something of the sort. Yet, taking the supposed portal into account….

'_When I said I wanted adventure, I didn't expect it to arrive in the form of a conundrum.' _I thought, utterly befuddled with the day's events.

As I was gazing in bemusement at the man, I hadn't noticed that the masked man had somehow escaped his bindings and the barrier I'd set up, until I felt the cool blade of a kunai pressed to my throat, and saw that he was no longer tied with the other two Akatsuki members.

I suppose this was the excitement I'd been wishing for.

A pity it ended up being possibly detrimental to my health.

**THE END**


	30. PLEASE READ!

**NOTE**

**To all of you who don't have me on author alert, the sequel to this story has been published! Just visit my profile to check it out, since I'm too lazy to copy/paste the link.**

**I'll take this A/N down in a few days once I'm sure everyone has seen it, since this is technically against the rules, but it's only temporary. So. No bitching allowed.**

**That was all! :D**


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